


Out of the Plains

by Kemo_sabe2891



Series: Out Of The Plains [1]
Category: Furry (Fandom)
Genre: Africa, Blood, Breeding, F/F, F/M, Feral Behavior, Foursome - F/F/F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, Lesbian Sex, Lions, M/M, Multi, Muscles, Nigeria, Oral Sex, Other, Polygamy, Pregnancy, Rough Sex, Sex, Threesome - F/F/M, Vaginal Sex, Violence, african wild dog, hyena, lion, taraba, wild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:29:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemo_sabe2891/pseuds/Kemo_sabe2891
Summary: so uh, I'm giving Archive of our Own a shot. I really want to find a place where I can find a community of writers and try to find the drive to write again.  I dont know exactly how this will turn out, but I look forward to the attempt anyway.





	1. The Bloody Stranger

She was angry. Her father Arkamun had reprimanded her for wrestling with her brothers. The spear and leather shield she had crafted so carefully had been ripped apart and smashed to bits, her blade taken and turned into a knife for one of her brothers. Arkamun wanted her with her mother and sisters, preparing food, weaving, seeing to the other mundanities while he searched for a man his age to marry her to in trade for some arrangement, maybe more land or a bull. 

She wouldn’t have that. She couldn’t stand for it. She was a lioness, the most powerful, the largest of her father’s children and the strongest even over her brothers. She belonged on the plains hunting, eating fresh and bloody instead of barely sating herself with starches and rare smatterings of overcooked flesh. 

She crouched in the tall grass and tugged at the woven skirt her father made the women wear. The men only wore hard half-gourds to cover their delicate dangling bits, and she didn’t feel she even required that. It bound her and slowed her down. It covered nothing when she dropped to all fours anyway, so it did little good. Losing it would anger Arkamun, but he had nothing to take from her and little else to punish her with now. She stood up and untied the ragged garment and let it fall to her ankles in a heap then kicked it as far as she could off into the field. She felt freer already, and took a moment to stretch out and breath the hot air. 

The sun shone off of her, her fur bright and the shade of copper. Her nose and lips were moist and black, her firm, young breasts were each peaked by black flesh, and her lowers were hidden from view by her tail behind and a heavy tuft of fur in front. Her body was tight her legs thick and strong, her hips wide, her arms broad and muscled. Her stomach was hard, the essentially strong trunk from which all limbs gathered their strength. Her face was regal, her chin strong for a female and her eyes were a bright yellow, shining deeply like amber. 

Her stomach rumbled and she smiled, letting her arms fall down to her sides as she relaxed. “[i]As good a time as any…[/i]” She sauntered out into the distance, to the herd that she knew was running wild to the south. 

 

[center]-------------------------------------------[/center]

 

She walked to where she had last seen the herd, but they were gone. They usually ranged, so it wasn’t completely unexpected to have to track them from this point. She tracked a few miles from that point, by prints and smell and trails of droppings that they left behind them. She crouched suddenly and her nose scrunched up, her lips drawing back into a snarl exposing her sharp teeth behind moist black lips. Blood wafted into her nose, blood and bile: the scent of death. 

She stalked quickly through the tall grass, never breaking the top of the grass and loping light-footed so as to leave the least trail as possible. She was upwind, which she corrected quickly. As she circled around she crossed the blood trail, pools of dark, fresh blood resting in deep, broad pawprints. A lion’s pawprints, too broad and heavy to belong to a female, led to the plains, not away from their territory, but parallel to an edge.

It was rare in those days that males would trespass. Their neighbors were all friendly and mostly well-behaved. Even the most ill-tempered of their neighbors’ and their sons wouldn’t be so brash as to poach, but whoever this was, had been. She suspected for a moment it was some young vagabond, the type with rifles and such that roamed without regard for tribe or who owned whatever land they were on, but she couldn’t smell the reek of gunpowder or gasoline. 

Her jaw nearly fell to the dust when she finally saw him. He was tall, taller than any of the lions she’d seen before, taller than her oldest brother and by far more than her father. His fur was dark tan like wet earth, and his mane was nearly black. The dead beast hung across his shoulders, the blood from it’s torn throat and flayed belly pouring down his back like a gory waterfall. Underneath the cloak of red he looked as though he had been sculpted from clay, every muscle and sinew rippling beneath his fur, not any hint of the soft places that plagued her father and uncles so. 

She drew her lips back into an aggressive, snarling smile. He was bigger and stronger than any she’d ever seen. Killing him, proving she was stronger than him, who was stronger than any other, would earn her a place among her brothers. Her tail sunk low, her shoulders fell back as she eased her head out from the grass behind him, stepping into his trail and following his footsteps closely, walking in his prints as she closed in, closer and closer still. She’d hit him low, attack the tendon at his ankle, and make the rest easy. She would rip his throat out before he could even curse. 

She launched forward with her legs, slashing out at his left ankle with her right claws. He lifted his leg out of the way in the nick of time, his claws extended to graze along the top of her arm as she followed through. She roared from the pain but kept moving. Her arm gave way as she tried to catch herself on it, but she rolled on her shoulders up onto her feet. 

The lion dropped his kill behind him as he lunged forward to attack the lioness. He didn’t know when the others would come, as lionesses were never alone, so he had to put her down quickly. His left claw aimed straight for her throat, his right aimed at her belly, either one alone would be enough to end her. She avoided the other set of claws by moving her head to the outside, and she stopped the paw at her belly by grabbing his wrist with both hands. His force was enough to push her back, but she held it at bay. She was going to shift her weight to throw him, but he brought that free paw back across her face, shutting his fist to bring his knuckles right across her nose. She tumbled backwards as blood poured from her crooked nose her eyes watered. 

She could only see the dark mass through her foggy vision, growing quickly as he neared her. She dropped low and let herself fall backwards, and as he came over her she stuck her foot straight out, catching him in the stomach and sending him vaulting over her, rolling through the tall grass and into a nearby tree with a loud, hollow thunk and a violent roar. She wiped her forearm across her eyes, clearing her vision as she rolled back onto her feet. She stood, watching, listening, waiting for him to emerge from the grass, waiting for the rustle of his movement, waiting for something to tell her where he was. She felt movement behind her and turned quickly, slashing at nothing before strong arms wrapped around her, a hand clutching her throat and an arm pinning her own arms to her body. 

She would have roared herself, but her throat was held too tightly. He pulled her back and she felt his body thunk against the tree again, holding her tight to him. She’d seen her uncles and her father with their wives and concubines and she knew what was coming. She readied her claws, feeling his manhood against her back. She would take it. He’d rip her throat out, but she’d have his manhood. If he was a lone male in the savannah he’d bleed to death. 

“Where are the others?” He said in a low, deep growl. 

She stopped but left her claws out. He wasn’t going to do [i]that[/i], he was waiting for the other lionesses to come out, using her as a shield. 

“Females never travel alone. Where are the others?!” He tightened his grip on her throat, bringing droplets of blood from her pricked flesh. 

As different in body as he was from the other males, he thought different, as well. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or afraid that he’d rather kill her than take her for himself. “I’m alone…” She replied quietly. He could have killed her by now, or worse, but now she was curious. 

The lion was quiet for a moment but never loosened his grip. “Why didn’t you extend your claws?”

“I wasn’t thinking fast enough. I should have ripped your belly open…” She could feel his breathing calm in the rising and falling of his chest against her back as he accepted that he was in control now. “What are you going to do now?” 

“I should rip your throat out and leave you here. A lesson to your sisters to not go out alone…” He growled lightly and bucked his hips forward as his hands released her, pushing her a safe distance away from him. “Run.” 

She fumbled a moment after being thrown away. She stood with her back to him, her tail swaying behind her as she hid a smile. “Will you be hunting here again?”

“Do you plan to send your brothers after me? Your father or your uncles?” He walked to the discarded kill, not bothering to watch her anymore, her threat diminished. “I’ll kill them. You have worth. They do not.” 

“I want to see you again. To fight you again, after I’ve become stronger.” She smirked watching him bend down and easily hoist up the large kill. “I have worth?”

“You’re strong. Your senses are dull, like all of your kind, but you are sharper than them, at least. You’ll bear many strong children, if your mate is good enough to compliment your blood.” He turned to face her, his face flat, no guile, no expression, just pure point-of-fact. “Your males are worthless. They should be culled by the strong, but your way of life prevents that.”

“You have been watching us, then?” She stepped back from him, concealing her smile. “For how long? Why?” 

“Before hunting in another’s territory you must take the land from them. Kill them and claim what is theirs by blood.” He started walking, intending to end their conversation there. “Their kind do not deserve the old ways.” 

Not content to let him go so soon, she walked beside him, looking up into his face. “Their kind? Is their kind different from mine?”

“I take water from the river South of here. If you wait there long enough you will see me again.” He ignored her question, moving on. “Don’t follow me any longer. If you find where I sleep I won’t let you return.”

She stopped walking with him and nodded, looking to the South. “Maybe I would like that.” She said with a broad smile before turning back to her village and taking a loping run. 

He stopped and turned, an eyebrow raised as he watched her run back to her people. Her copper-colored fur glowed a bright red in the dusk, like a ball of fire running through the grass. He shook his head and turned back the way he was walking, taking his dinner with him.


	2. Conquest

The season had been hot. The banks of the river were cracked and dry and the few animals left in it were buried in the rich mud in the middle. This time of year, the few weeks before the rainy season, things were always dry and somewhat unpleasant. Even though the rain was soon, there was still enough time to die for want of water if the reserves and what little was left on the plains wasn’t managed effectively. Their sparring had even wavered lately as neither one was willing to waste their blood or energy in this time. 

She waited for him underneath an almost bare fruit tree at the edges of her tribe’s territory. They had been meeting there instead of the river since it had run dry because its branches were heavy with juicy red fruit and it shaded them easily with thick leaves. Now, as the season ran dry the good fruits were all eaten and the rest were shriveled and dead. The leaves were mostly fallen as well, laying on the ground making a kind of cover between the scorching earth and her bare chest and stomach. 

She felt him in her whiskers before she heard him. He’d taught her how to use them, and in turn she’d helped him learn how to soften his steps, to walk quietly and stay in the shadows like lionesses did. She was happy to help since he shared his kills with her, partly because he couldn’t quite eat them completely by himself, but also because it was mostly with her help he was able to get fatter, healthier kills. She preferred the fresh, bloody meat to the roots and stews and dried meats and fruits that her people had made staple anyway. 

His footfalls felt heavier than usual, signalling that he had a kill and its weight was pushing him down. She lifted her head and rose up onto her elbows, smiling as she saw the fat, fit bull slung across his shoulders. There was barely any blood, a signal for a successful ambush, and she could almost hear its broken bones cracking against each other inside it’s limp neck. She smiled and licked her lips, wiggling her toes and snaking her tail behind her as she started to stretch her body out. “Looks like you had a very good hunt…” She pushed herself up slowly, onto her palms to stretch out her back like felines do, pushing her shoulders back and her breasts forward. “How close did you get before it felt you?” 

“Close enough.” He gave a light chuckle and dropped the beast and knelt before it with his back to her. In the past weeks or months he had become much more secure with her. As many times as they’d sparred, wrestled, hunted together, sunned and napped, the trust between them was almost implicit. 

As he started to gut the thing she moved around to his side, crawling up to his knee, her hips and shoulders rocking high back and forth in that sultry way that big cats do. She put a hand on his thigh and peeked over it, watching him split the beast open. “He’s big and strong. Not too old either… You should be proud of yourself.” She squeezed his thigh and laid her head down onto it, jumping a little as its stomach fell open and spilled across the ground, the blood and other viscera pouring across his foot and the leg he was sitting on. “What will you eat first? His liver will give you his courage. His heart will give you his strength.” 

“Do you really believe this?” He asked, scooping up the thing’s liver in his paw. “If he had any courage to begin with, he wouldn’t fill his belly with grass instead of meat. If he had any courage he would stand and fight me rather than run.” He crushed the organ in his claw, making bits of meat and blood squirt from between his fingers. “There is no magic. There are no gods, or spirits, or devils. And even if there were, give them no heed. I don’t need or want their help, and if they stand in my way I will destroy them, same as any other.” He opened his clenched hand and looked down at the mangled mass of flesh. “There is only meat.”

She watched his hand intently, taking in what he had to say. He put in words what she had felt in her belly for so long. She didn’t look up, but she could feel his gaze bearing down on the top of her head. Smiling slightly, she leaned forward, crawling over his leg to his bloodied hand. She took his wrist in her hand and pulled his hand to her maw, licking over the mass of raw flesh before taking it in her maw and swallowing it down. “You are right…” She said, licking across his palm, cleaning him with her rough tongue. “But it is still good meat.” She began obsequiously cleaning his paw, licking along his fingers with her body laying across his thigh. 

He let out a quiet purr and shifted his weight, falling down from his kneel onto his rump, knocking her a little sideways. “Sit still, you overgrown kitten.” She laughed and gave him a playful shove to his ribs before flopping chest-down on his lap and taking his paw again, continuing her cleaning. “You always have to be so dramatic…” 

He looked down at her muscled, rippling back, her firm arms and strong shoulders. His eyes travelled back down from her graceful neck, to her full, tight rump and her long, strong legs. His free hand moved to her back, resting on her shoulder and slowly moving down, stroking along the center of her back from her neck to her tailbase. She purred as she took his fingers into her maw one at a time, getting them good and completely clean. 

She pulled free of his thumb and gave it a peck on the claw before lounging in his lap, pressing her chest down as her arms sprawled out in front of her. “You won’t see me again after tonight.” She said abruptly, as if she’d only now thought of it. In truth she’d been trying to figure out how to tell him for the longest time, nearly since they met. She had been afraid to how he would react, not knowing whether he would consider her not worth any more trouble and abandon her or if he would… she honestly didn’t know what, besides losing his companionship, that she was afraid of. 

In the beginning it was something simple. They were similar at face. They were both like beasts, wild and free and strong enough to live the life they wanted. And they [i]did[/i] want the same life. To be free, to be wild, to have children and take a place of their own. The more she got to know him the more she knew that this was the one who was meant to have her, who would respect her for what she was and want her for it. The man who valued everything she was, and cared little for the things that she wasn’t. 

“Why not? You finally decide to go home and do your ‘womens’’ work’?” He said with obvious derision. He’d never attempted to hide his distaste for their tribe’s ways, after all. “Or did your father find some fat male to marry you to for a few cows?” His claws raked over her back a little more roughly as he attempted to hide his displeasure. She was incredible. She was strong, clever, ruthless in hunting and fighting. When he was with her he didn’t feel in competition for everything, like every meal and every drink of water and every step he took he’d have to fight her for. She was the only person he’d ever felt safe sleeping next to. 

“Yes.” She answered, rolling onto her back. His hand on her back ended up in the center of her chest when she turned, and she held it there, his palm against the valley between her breasts. He scritched there naturally and looked into her eyes, both of them stern and loury. “My hus-” She stopped mid word to retch slightly and turned away from his gaze. “My father’s pick arrives… well he is probably already at the village. We will be married here, and he once he’s given my father his cattle, he’ll take me to his tent and consummate….” 

He growled and moved his paw up, stroking her throat and under her chin. “And you’ll let him?” 

“No, but he has brought his friends with him to help hold me down. I don’t know how many I can kill before I grow tired.” She looked up at him with a toothy, violent smirk. “But I’m disappointed.” 

He looked down at her with a raised eyebrow, his head tilted curiously. “About?” He moved his hand up from her throat to her cheek, and up from there behind her ear, lightly kneading her ear between his thumb and fingers. 

“Am I a good lioness?” She asked, looking up at him with that serious look in her eyes again. 

He chuckled and noded, moving his other hand to stroke her other ear, making her purr lightly. “I’m almost sure. If you were a hyena you’d be better endowed than me.” 

“Then why haven’t you decided to take me for yourself?” She put her hands on his wrists, holding his hands on her head. “Am I too strong? Too capable? Do you prefer the fat, helpless ones with their breasts dragging the ground and their whole bodies shaking when they walk?” She almost hissed the words out, her disdain for the weakness and unhealth that was desired by the males in her tribe and others nearby. 

He shook his head slowly and growled, tugging his hands against her firm hold. He was forced to think carefully about his answer, pausing between words trying to piece together the best way to say what he wanted to say. “I… don’t know what to do with you. You don’t deserve treated like them. To be dragged off into the shade and taken…. You’re better…, you’re more. I don’t want to... own you. I want to stay like this.” He growled as he turned away and she let go of his wrists. “I would go, kill your father and take everything that he has…, but you’re the only thing he has that I want.” 

She looked up at him as he glared out into the distance. His ear flickered but he didn’t turn back down to her. She suddenly rose up and shoved his chest, knockin him backward before she landed on his chest. “Come tonight. Tell him that I’m all you want… if he makes you fight…” She leaned in, pressing her muzzle to his neck, digging through his mane with her nose till she got to the flesh, her face buried in the thick, hair and drowning in his heavy scent. “You’ll know what to do…” She licked his neck aggressively and gave it a nip, starting to nibble at it. 

He grunted as he was knocked back, but only purred as she went about her business. When he felt her teeth on his throat, something that he’d never imagined he’d enjoy, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight to him. “And what of your husband and his friends?” 

“He won’t be my husband until he takes me…” She said, finally pulling her head free. Her eyes burned, a bright fire behind them as she looked down at him. He was the same, a fire in his belly growing larger than even his hottest rage. He didn’t know what this was, but the power he felt threatened to consume him. 

“Hold him off till I’m done… How will I know his tent?” He asked, his hands travelling a little further down than he’d ever dared. 

She smacked his roaming hands roughly enough to make him roar before she quickly darted up to her feet and stepped back away from him. “I’m not letting you get greedy now…. You don’t want me like a thief in the night…, you’ll have me like a conquering king.” She turned, tracing the lines of her body with her hands. She put her hands under her ass and cupped her cheeks, squeezing them for him and sliding them down her legs, showing him everything. “You’ll know the tent by the strange symbols they put on everything, and a flag sticking from the top. And you might hear their screams.” She stood back up and smiled that bestial smile that he loved to see across her lips as she walked into the high grass. 

[center]---------------------------------[/center]

The village was alive, like a disturbed anthill. Half naked children ran about with others in robes, with still others in shorts and t-shirts. The adults were largely dressed similarly, although there were no women in robes, only the locals in their ceremonial body paint and nudity. A row of tents led into a dead end, what westerners would call a cul-de-sac, a large circle of tents and stick shacks surrounding a fire. Most of them were undecorated and incredibly simple. A few of them had skin-covered roofs, and there was one particularly large one that belonged to Arkamun, which he shared with his wives, his brothers, and their wives. 

At the fringes of the circle were a few different tents, separate from the rest, made of layered cloth, blankets and sheets. They were covered in ornate designs and had a strong, spicy, perfumed smell leaking from the base and through a hole in the roof. One was like she had described it, a little larger with a flag over the top of it. That tent had a different scent emanating from it: the smell of a male. The scent of a male young and in the middle stages of his transformation into a man, when his body goes wild and makes him stupid, makes him smell like heat and makes him unsafe to be around the females alone. This is the time when his father should be cucking him, putting him in his place and keeping him there. 

It would be an hour or maybe two before dusk. He had expected her to warn Arkamun or at least for him to expect something by now. How they had managed to spend so much time alone together and yet never anyone following her or keeping tabs on her confused him. Then again, the lions that gave in to the demands of gods and spirits and had adopted the lifeways of hyenas and the foreign dogs always had an oddity to their behaviour. 

Around the fire sat several old lions. There were more than he had expected but she never had said exactly how many uncles she had, or ever mentioned how many grown males were arriving with her new husband. The males were all dressed to some degree, most of them in large, thick, heavy robes with more fabric wrapped around their heads in elaborate headdresses. The purpose of them he couldn’t interpret other than to perhaps hide or compensate for a lacking mane. The largest few, who also looked to be younger, wore large, jeweled clubs at their sides, seemingly chained to their belts. What purpose they served besides decoration he wasn’t sure either, but as mentioned, these lions could be odd and crafty. The rest, the minority around the fire, for sure, were wearing simple gourds over their manhoods and paint on their bodies and faces, along with braided manes. 

He heard the yeowling first. Then a wet, squelching scream like comes from a split throat; cut a little high so the cords weren’t damaged too much. Several young men roared, deep and strong but with the distinct tone of fear. All the heads around the fire turned to face the scream, and it was then that he walked into the village, through the lane of tents and huts. He expected the women to stop him, or even the sons that were gathered away from the fire, but they barely raised their heads. The lionesses of a tribe should tear a strange male to shreds in their territory and even more so when so close to their children. What she had told him must have been true, how the females of this tribe had been made into weavers and cooks and little else. 

The younger males around the fire stood and started to head for the tent, but that massive, foreign beast that had come to fetch her released a powerful roar that brought all of their attentions to him. With the sun at his back he was nearly completely black even with the fire at his front. His fur and mane, both unnaturally dark, soaked up the light from the towering flame making the shine from his eyes look like smoldering embers, red hot stones set into a dark clay face. 

The lions in robes watched at him strangely as he walked to the fire. The eldest one, with grey in his thinned mane and with a robe barely concealing his frail elderly body, turned and smiled at the fattest of the almost-nude lions. “Arkamun, did you have a son you haven’t yet introduced us to?” 

“No, Alman-” The fat one replied with a light growl. “I’ve never met this man before.” Arkamun’s glare at the new lion didn’t break as the others at his sides rose, others like him and of similar age. Their stomach’s spilled over the strings on their gourds and they had breasts like women; their bodies continued to move for several moments after they had stopped. “Kibwe, Ngozi, find out what he wants and get rid of him.” 

The ragged old lion turned back to the intruder and looked him over, and curled his lip up into the slightest smile. “Why don’t you ask him? I think we can hear him from across the fire, don’t you?” He lifted his hand at Kibwe and Ngozi and motioned for them to sit. They paused and looked at Arkamun, who nodded in approval. The sounds of struggle from the tent beside them never stopped, almost sounding like a battle was going on inside. 

Arkamun growled again and leaned forward on his knees, looking at the intruder harshly. “What do you want here? You’re not of any of our neighbors’ sons or I would have known you before.” 

“I am here for the female.” The young male replied plainly. 

“What? Which one?” Arkamun looked around to the rest of his family, so many daughters and wives to choose from. He thought for a moment, and realized what his unruliest daughter had been up to all these days to herself. He pointed with his thumb to the tent beside them and chuckled derisively. “She already belongs to Tawur.” 

“Tahawwur.” The elder lion corrected, his gaze on the young intruder remaining steadfast. “Son of Alman. I am Alman.” He paused for a moment, everyone remaining quiet as he spoke. The smallest of all the males, the oldest and frailest, somehow he commanded a powerful respect among the others. “It is too late now. If you had’ve come earlier, perhaps-”

A young man burst from the tent suddenly, with a distracting thud. His panting breaths gurgled as blood dripped from his maw and coated his face, dripping from a wrent ear and a gashed forehead. His tail was gone, nothing but a slight nub poking from his tailbone like a docked canine. He stumbled forward, trying to find his way to his feet before quickly falling flat on the ground. 

“Sh-hrk!-” He gagged and puked, whether the taste of blood was sickening him or he had some internal damage was hard to determine. “-monster! Ehsan is dead!” 

The large, robed males burst into action going to each side of the young, bloodied male. They put him on his side, keeping him from choking on his own blood as they looked him over. “Is the blood from your mouth or from your stomach?” One of them asked as the other stared at the tent, his tail whipping aggressively behind him as a snarl started to spread on his lips. The injured male could only respond in short, hacking words, which made the male caring for him lean in closer. “Be calm… catch your breath, clear your throat, speak…” 

“It isn’t too late yet…” The intruder said as he turned towards the tent and began walking towards it. “If your son couldn’t take a woman for himself, you had no reason to think he could handle one as strong as her.” 

Alman growled lightly and held up his hand to his warriors. “Qadir, protect Tahawwur. Ra’d, pull Shahid to the fire and care for his wounds.” 

Arkamun watched the goings-on anxiously, Kibwe and Ngozi at his sides looking on in confusion. “I swear I knew nothing of this. My daughter was always unruly but we never knew she was-”

“You knew she was wild! I saw it on your face when you first agreed, why else do you think I had my son bring his brothers and cousins?!” Arkamun hushed himself as the elder patriarch raised his voice for the first time. “What frustrates me that your daughter’s chastity is now in question. She’s had this suitor for how long?” 

The intruder roared again as the one called Qadir neared the tent, bringing all eyes to him again. His shoulders were back and his head was low. Qadir was within a few steps of the tent, but the young male was closer to him than he was to the door. He turned to face him, his right hand on his sword. As soon as Qadir’s shoulders started to turn, the other male lunged at him. Qadir drew his sword up, slashing diagonally at the male’s belly, but he twisted at the last second letting the blade pass him by as he collided with Qadir. He grasped Qadir’s left hand and pulled him down as he thrust his roaring maw up, taking the elder, robed male’s throat in his jaws.

The two males hit the ground from the force of the younger’s tackle. Both of Qadir’s wrists were grabbed up by the younger male, the two wrestling on shear strength as the young, naked beast fought to get his teeth to his neck. The hold on Qadir’s neck loosened with a roar as he buried a knee into the larger male’s ribs. Teeth gnashed as both males wrestled, Qadir attempting to bring up more knees as the younger lion moved his legs to avoid or block them as best he could. The younger male caught an opening and drove his knee into Qadir’s groin, putting his weight down into his knee, into Qadir’s manhood. The older male roared in pain, bashing his head on the ground as he thrashed, giving the young one an opening. The savage ripped into Qadir’s bicep with his jaws, bringing a painful, wailing roar from him as fabric, skin, and muscle tore away together. 

The sword clattered to the ground as the pain and the damage to Qadir’s arm finally loosened his grip. His free left hand clawed at the beast’s shoulder and back, his wild and thick mane protecting his head and throat. With the threat of Qadir’s sword nulled, his aggressor turned attention to that thrashing claw. He swung the sharp of his elbow into the meat of Qadir’s forearm as he swung his own claws across, catching Qadir’s muzzle. The right side of his muzzle was wrent; long flaps of his lips hung from his face and a hunk of his nose ripped clean away in a splatter of blood, snot, and drool. 

Kibwe and Ngozi were on their feet and poised to strike on the intruder, though they remained at Arkamun’s sides. They shook from head to toe, their bodies rippling like half-full waterskins. Alman’s lips curled back, dry and black, revealing teeth the off-white color of old ivory. The patriarch seethed beneath his towering turban. He could feel the fear seeping from the brothers floating in the air, almost overpowering the stench of blood. “Ra’d,” he called out with an exasperated voice, “Finish caring for Shahid and help our hosts gather up all of their unmarried daughters…” 

Arkamun swallowed dryly and begun to move to his feet. “What are you talking about, Alman?” Ra’d stood and beckoned Arkamun’s brothers with a wave, starting to walk into the village propper. Ngozi and Kibwe, without weapons and unfit to use them regardless, heeded Ra’d’s call to follow.

“A brother… A nephew… perhaps my son…” Arkamun stood slowly with the aid of a rough-hewn stick, before now laying unnoticed at his side amidst the fuel and goads of their fire. “All of your daughters will pay this debt back.”

A loud squelch followed by choked screaming filled the air as the intruding beast buried both of his thumbs into Qadir’s eye sockets, spearing his eye on those massive claws, popping them like soft eggs as he squeezed his head, trying to break through the back of the socket and end this fight for good. Arkamun’s entire body shook from the sound of Qadir’s scream, the pitch growing high as the terror of death set in. “I-I didn’t do this, Alman… Take your price out of their skin…”

Finally to his feet, Alman started to walk toward the tent. “I cannot take my children back out from his flesh. You created this by not keeping after your daughter. You will not escape the consequences.” Qadir’s screaming stopped as Alman neared the tent, the sentinel finally silenced. The beast pulled his thumbs free of Qadir’s skull with a painful squelch, his hands and muzzle painted with fresh blood, the edge of every splatter starting to dry and mat his fur. His lips were pulled back into a violent snarl, white teeth stained red and pink-hued drool leaking from the corners of his maw. “I’ll call my son off, if you stop this.” He took another step towards the tent. “Can you stop? Or has your mind gone?” His shoulders slumped and his weight dropped, not planning on taking this old man lightly, judging him highly by the men he kept in his submission. 

Before either of the dominant males could make their moves, another exploded from the doors of the tent. It was an adolescent lion, with only the shaggiest hints of a mane hanging from his neck and face. He was nude, wetness matting down his groin and the inside of his leg, smelling heavy of piss and fear. His chest was ripped from his collarbone to his navel with eight jagged vertical gashes that were roughly cut and unevenly spaced. The elder lion’s composure was broken by the sudden extrusion of the bloody mess from the tent, but the younger was not. 

The beast took his opportunity and began moving to lunge. In the first bound he fell to all fours like a feral, only slightly awkward in the instinctive movements that his body could only barely support. His body straightened out in mid-air, his palms outstretched to catch the ground beneath him with a mighty thud as his legs tightly coiled beneath him, caught the ground, and exploded forward into another lunge. 

“Taha-” The patriarch began to call out to the bloodied mess on the ground before him as he fell to his knees beside it, hands outstretched and reaching for his son. 

Tahawwur grabbed his father’s shoulders, hanging from them tightly as the beast quickly approached. “MONSTER! Ar-” before he could finish, the tent opened again and he stuttered speechlessly. 

She stepped out slowly, the tent flaps caressing her body as she gnawed on the thick, heavy ropes that bound her wrists before her. Blood dripped from her claws and her jaws, coating the front of her body in dark crimson and a sharp metallic scent. Fragments of blood-stained rope hung from her ankles as well, dragging across her stained footprints as their frayed ends loosed. The beast halted, his heels digging in and sliding across the earth before his rear end landed behind him with a heavy thud and a small cloud of dust. The flaps of the tent closed behind her as the tattered remains of rope fell from her wrists. She smiled from one corner of her mouth while she snarled with the other, her ears pointing to the beast on his haunches as she looked down on the other two. 

Alman looked up at her, in his eyes resting a healthy deference to her, but not fear. “It is over… we make no claim on you. You’re free.” His son still held onto his neck, like a scared child. 

She growled down at Alman as she stepped away turning her back to him as she walked to her beast. There was no respect in her eyes for Alman, and no concern for him preventing her from giving him her back. Him and his son were nothing, they held no threat against her. She knelt before her male, their bodies likewise caked in blood, very little of it their own, and touched their foreheads together. “I had thought you wouldn’t come.” 

He took her face in his hands, grinding his forehead into hers as his hands stroke over her cheeks, squeezing and rubbing her face affectionately. “Of course I would come… I wanted to give you your chance to escape on your own, is all.” 

She ran her hands roughly through his mane, matted with blood and sweat, hanging heavy around his face. “Any longer and I’d have had to come looking for you, instead.” She chuckled as she pulled him up by his mane, eliciting a quiet growl from him as she pulled his hair. “I’ll show you where they keep the water. And we’ll take a bull for ourselves, won’t we?”

Looking up at them, Alman felt an earnest fear for the first time in many years. He had known, seeing her for the first time, that she was abnormally large for a female. She was taller than he had been as a young man, as tall as his guards, taller than his son and his son’s friends, and almost stronger than all of them when they wrestled her into her binds. As intimidating a female as she was, though, the male that held her now in his arms dwarfed her. Being more than a head taller than her, he was proportionate to her entirely. The idea that there was a near, if not perfect, mate for a monster like him was downright terrifying, and looking down at his… demure son, he worried for the future when their children might rise from the tall grass, hungry. “What tribe are you from?!” Alman hollered as the two walked away from them. 

The beast didn’t turn, but answered him. “I have no tribe. I am the son of Tafari of the black mountain, son of Dejen, son of Berhanu.” He was alone. This was a comfort to Alman. Without midwives, without a tribe, without family, they could never become a threat to him, to his sons, or to his grandsons. 

As the two disappeared into the village to collect their own spoils, Alman lifted his son onto his feet. Their walk would be long, driving this herd of Arkamun’s cattle and carrying two dead sons along with him. Alman’s fury would be born out as old mens’ furies are, slowly and with extreme prejudice. Arkamun’s people would starve. Combined with the ravenous youngsters now taking all of their water, they might die of thirst before they have the chance to starve. 

As Alman walked his son to join Ra’d with their new cattle, he gave the pair a final, curious turn. They were each carrying a pair of steel water cans in each hand, eight in all, as if they were nothing. They knocked into one another, and he could faintly hear their laughing as they walked the other way, away from the burning golden sun and into the dark purple twilight. 

To Be Continued


	3. Who We Are

His back was dripping fresh, hot blood. Between them; him and his new wife, there was no gentleness. Neither of them desired for it. Neither of them needed it. His barbed flesh tore hers mercilessly, and her claws tore his flesh in kind She roared in a pain that she’d never experienced before, but as that pain receded and gave way to the pleasure of her husband’s flesh, she was comforted by it. She gave him her first. Her immaculate flesh was a sacrifice to their bond, and he took it wantonly. 

His jaws around her throat nearly choked her, but never threatened to break her skin. She appreciated the feeling of being held down, of being forcefully taken by the male that she had chose for herself. His hands roamed over her body hungrily, in place of his grasping maw. They explored every inch of her, the familiar form now under his fingertips for the first time, his flesh hungry for what his eyes had been feasting on for more than a season. Her wet, black lips curled back into a smile while she roared out from pleasure as the rough pads of his fingertips squeezed the sensitive, exposed flesh of her nipples and his steeled manhood scraped at her insides like a rasp, every thrust bringing her closer and closer to climax. 

His body ground against hers, his coarse fur teasing the rows of soft, almost vestigial teats that lined her abs below her breasts. His claws dug into the dirt below them, giving him traction as he drove himself forward into her tender, fertile fields. Her legs wrapped behind his thighs, pulling herself up into his every deeply-plowing thrust. He released her throat and roughly pressed his cheek against hers, his eyes shut and his every breath growled out through clenched teeth. She licked his cheek and nibbled on it, her hands moving back to his face, roughing through his mane as her own growls finally disappeared amidst growing lustful moans. 

He wrapped his massive paws around her breasts and squeezed them tightly. His maw opened to roar, but she pulled his head down roughly and wrapped his muzzle up in hers, surprising him. Her tongue forced its way into his maw, muffling his roar as he finally reached his climax inside of her. As he became comfortable with this new sensation, and forcefully wrestled her tongue with his, she let out a high-pitched, yeowling scream of her own. Her fists balled in his mane, her legs spasmed and clutched him tightly into her, not letting him move at all save for the shallowest grinding of his hips. 

What felt like hours later, into the dark of the night, they relaxed together. Her legs, limp and tired, entangled themselves with his as they fell. His arms held his weight, his hands on her shoulders loosely. Her fingers never untangled from his mane, holding his face to her as they idly, rested and kissed one another. She finally pulled him away by his mane, both of them breaking free from the kiss with a gasp, and panting together as if neither of them had remembered to breathe.

She smiled at him warmly, an odd, new kind of smile that he’d never seen from her before. He didn’t notice himself returning the same face. She roughed his mane and pushed him to her side, laughing happily. 

“Get off of me you oaf!” She said through her laugh as he thudded beside her. She laid back, looking up at the ceiling of his den as she stretched her arms and legs out. “I hadn’t thought about it until now… how foolish of me…” He looked at her puzzled, but didn’t inquire. He listened to her quietly, letting her talk as he continued trying to catch his breath. “What is my husband’s name? Do you even know my name?” 

He looked at her puzzled for a moment, but then smiled and laid back close to her, taking her hand in his massive claw and laying his chin on her breast. “I left my name behind when I left my father’s pride… When I was alone, I did not need a name. As the father of a pride, now I need a new name. What would you call me?” 

She turned down to him, looking into his eyes as he looked up from her chest. “That… that is so odd…” She giggled slightly and licked his nose. “But I know what I would call you…” 

He smiled and nuzzled down into the valley between her breasts, breathing their mixed scent that was soaked into her fur. “What is that?”

She shook her head and laid her head back, combing her fingers through his mane again. “I would call you Tapiwa… It means ravager, pillager… destroyer.” She explained with a tinge of pride in her voice. “You will grow into it…”

Pride welled up within him as he heard her expectations for him. He wasn’t content with carving a life from the plains, living in constant hunger and thirst and fear, and having the same for his children. He started to speak, but before he could, she continued. 

“You’ll take many more wives… and have many strong children… they will have to be worthy of you. They will have to be vetted. I will not share what is rightfully mine with the unworthy…” 

He looked up at her, with a broad smile, and shut his eyes, touching his lips to hers softly. “Adaeze…” He said, keeping close to her like that. “Adaeze… my princess… forever and always... “ He rubbed nuzzled against her nose, reaching out his tongue to lick across her lips. 

She opened her maw and took in his tongue, pressing her rough feline muscle into his maw. Their maws locked together and they began to kiss again, Tapiwa throwing his arm over her to take his place over her again. Before he could, though, she threw her legs over him and rolled him onto his back, pinning his hands over his head. Before he could struggle, she broke the kiss, and nuzzled up beneath his ear. “Lay still, and let me serve my king…” She nipped his ear teasingly, bringing a growl from his lips as his manhood nestled between her dripping wet heat. 

The sun would rise before they would sleep. Nestled deep in their den with their reserve of water and a fair bit of food, they wouldn’t have to hunt or seek out water for quite a while. When they would rise to hunt, their days of hunting beasts for meager meat and skins would be over. But for now, nothing could be further from either of their minds.

To Be Continued


	4. Destruction

Golden grass swayed in the gentle wind, shoulder-high and healthy, heads rattling and rustling together softly as they were weighed down by their bounty. The air was light and dry, the breeze was pleasantly cool against the gathering warmth of the sun. It had been a good year. The rain was heavy and warm, the cattle were fat and crops plentiful. Through the grass cut a road, rich red earth beaten down by feet, cattle, carriages, motorbikes and automobiles. Down this road trod a herd of men and beasts.

The bull at the head, the heavy and proud beast, was bigger than the fattest cow, and his muscle rippled beneath his thick flesh solid as stone. His horns were crescents, and nearly touched in the center atop his head, save for the left was just an inch or perhaps two shorter than the other. He was all white save for his black ears and nose, and cleaned to be sold, so impeccably that he almost looked painted. Driving the herd of beasts was a group of wild dogs. They were fit from the season as well, their muscles and bellies full and healthy. What could be seen of it, anyway. 

The dogs, oyibo, were covered in various combinations of baggy covering clothes, some even wearing shoes. The man at the head carried a rifle, a thing which was easily recognized, as did the man in the rear, though his was different. They spoke with each other in an odd blabbering tongue, even their wordless exclamations and their laughters were offensive to the ear. Their smell carried like their voices, brash and awful. The wind carried sickeningly sweet fruits and chemicals away from them and diffused it through the grass. 

[i]“Would make a buzzard ill.”[/i] Tapiwa, the monstrous lion thought to himself as his nose began to burn, unable to move for the moment, lest he be exposed before time. He lied in wait, shaded and hidden in the grass, his tail low and his eyes narrow. He could usually smell Adaeze across the road, even over the rottenest cattle and the least-washed ranchers, but right now his nose burnt like he had just huffed gasoline and he couldn’t smell anything, let alone his phantom of a wife. 

Adaeze herself was luckily upwind of the stench, if for nothing else than her comfort. She didn’t need to smell Tapiwa to know where he was. From his sheer size he was limited in his stealth, the void of split grass above him a dead giveaway for anyone looking. He was quiet, yes, and his footfalls were like a mouse’s now that she had taught him better, but his frame would always betray him. She could almost feel that he did not know where she was. She could pick up their scent though it was faint enough from upwind it did not burn her like she knew it did Tapiwa.

The presence of multiple firearms complicated their plan slightly, but not enough to really matter. If there were more than two, now that would have been a problem. The largest obstacle now though, was her lack of any ability to signal him whatsoever. There were five dogs, an odd number, and without having marked them beforehand, taking them silently and in good order would be difficult. But, it would not be impossible. Once it started, it would be over in an instant, and feeling her husband growing anxious she knew it would start soon. 

The largest dog was at the front, though he was nowhere close to Tapiwa’s size. His rifle was large, as long as he was, and painted in shades of fresh, leafy green with stripes of a yellow reminiscent of an infant’s vomit. Two more walked side by side, to the left of the herd, nearly attached at the shoulder. On the right was a lone dog with a goad, and in the rear was another, the second largest after the one in front. The one in the rear also had a gun though it was bigger and was red steel and raw wood. They didn’t know much about those weapons, aside from the danger inherent in them. Neither had ever used one themselves. 

Adaeze of course knew about guns, how dangerous they were, but she’d never used one herself. She had tried to explain to Tapiwa about them before, but was unsure as to how well he grasped it. He had a habit of dismissing anything outside of himself as a weakness, especially weapons, and this was no different. She knew enough to know that the one in the front was automatic and the one in the rear was not, and was less dangerous for it. The man in front needed to go first, that was obvious. The man in back, then the rest would fall in whatever order was most convenient. She began to move towards the front. 

The herd had almost completely passed Adaeze as she watched, which gave her more than fifty meters to catch up to. She knew her husband would underestimate the gun and would ignore the man in front, so she had to get to it before Tapiwa let his excitement get the better of him. Moving quickly and quietly was something of her specialty, but as the season was ending and the grass was drying every step became more dangerous, more obvious. She slowed around the right sentry, still overtaking him, but before she could a sound disturbed her, disturbed the herd, and disturbed the dogs. 

Tapiwa had sat and watched enough. Not knowing where his wife had gone, not having a laid a plan, and not wanting to regroup and waste the time of setting up a trap for them, He waited for the two dogs to pass him, then eased himself out of the tall grass, keeping himself low and using the herd as his cover. He was quieter than he once was by a large margin, but still far from silent. In spite of his noise both of the dogs were oblivious of his presence as he waited for his opportunity. Tapiwa slowed, and let the dogs walk until there was a good ten or so meters between them. 

Tapiwa crouched down low, compressing his body. His claws dug into the earth beneath him, the weight of his torso rested on the knuckles of his left hand, his left leg extended behind him in line with his back. His right leg was bent and compressed beneath him, his muscles tensed, stretching at the skin and ready to explode. And explode he did. Thirty feet he covered in barely four bounds, like a bolt of lightning. Before the dog so much as felt something coming Tapiwa’s jaws hit him right at the back of his neck, and the force of that blow broke his spine all at once. Tapiwa’s right hand gripped the back of the other dog’s head as he went forward, and as he dropped with both of them, he slammed the other dog’s muzzle into the ground, shattering it inwards onto itself. He took that one’s throat in his other hand, and held it by both claws as he quickly changed his direction and darted inwards, into the herd of now-frightened and quite disturbed cattle. 

All eyes turned inward to center as loud lowing and frightened stomping of the cattle overtook the sound of rustling grass. Loud dry thuds and wet gurgles filled the space that was filled with speech and laughter. Tapiwa had done just as Adaeze thought he would, and she wasn’t in a position to take either of the threats to the two of them. Before her though, with his back to her, was an unaware dog, and she would take the advantage as it presented itself. A long arm reached out from the grass, and in an instant pulled him off of his feet and into the grass. Before he could scream, her jaws were wrapped around his throat, and with a firm squeeze and a sickening, wet crack, the flesh of his throat was crushed. A twist and pull and a loud tearing noise saw his spine and the meat of his neck exposed to sunlight for the first time, his arteries spraying blood against the bottom of his muzzle and face. Light began to fade from his eyes and his body kicked and thrashed in its final throes as the lioness moved away from him, retreating deeper into the grass.

The dog in front turned and began to stop the herd. Stopping the lead bull, the docile old beast he was, by holding him with one horn was enough to stop their forward momentum, but not enough to keep them from spreading out, away from the commotion towards their center. He yelled something to the dog in the rear and that one began walking into the herd, shouldering his way past the cattle. The one in front kept turning, keeping his head on a swivel, keeping aware, or trying to at least. It didn’t do much good as the lions both kept low, lower than his eyes, lower than the backs of his cows. 

Seeing the dog in the rear move closer to the source of the scent of blood that she knew her husband was the source of, Adaeze began moving quickly towards him. Crossing out of the grass and into the herd was quick, and nearly unnoticeable. She wove through the cattle, under their legs and between them, getting closer by inches. She crawled on all fours behind him, moving in his wake, and as she finally came into arms’ reach of him, she took his ankles in both hands and pulled them backwards out from under him. 

The dog barked as his nose hit the dirt, cracking his muzzle audibly, leaving him to groan and gurgle in a momentarily unaware state. The bolt handle of his rifle smacked him square in the chest, which hurt more than either his bleeding nose or split lip did, and it was only by luck it didn’t crack a rib. Of course, by missing his ribs it did feel like it punched a hole in his lung, but aside from a knot that he was sure would welcome him in the morning he was none worse for wear. He lifted up to get his gun out from under him, letting the air back into his chest as he moved into a push-up position. Before he could make his way to his knees Adaeze fell upon him, the bone of her forearm slamming down against the back of his neck with all of her weight. He grunted for half of a moment before his face hit the ground again, but was cut off immediately by the sharp, violent, crack of broken spine shatters grinding against themselves inside of his throat. 

Adaeze scrambled to grab the dog’s rifle from above his head, his arms limp and outstretched, lifelessly and weakly clutching the mass of dry wood and rusted steel. She had seen one of her uncles’ friends use one of these before, the friends in the heavy robes. She had listened and watched but not been allowed to actually lay hands on the thing then for the same reason her father disapproved her hunting, but she hoped she would remember enough now. 

To say Tapiwa laid in wait would be deceptive. The time from the moment he made the first move until Adaeze broke the dog’s neck was less than a minute. Tapiwa simply held the two dead dogs through their last throes, keeping them quiet until they were done twitching, and listening for his wife’s ques. He counted them, every one, and at that last crack of bone he knew there was only one left. Tapiwa was the closest a man could get to a beast. Inside of him was no fear, hesitation was foreign to him. His face coated in blood and his hands painted with it, he charged towards the dog in front, the dog with the larger painted rifle. His head low, nothing signalling his coming but his heavy footfalls, still taking cover beneath the cattle. The dog half-yelled and half-barked, showing the slightest bit of his suppressed wild nature out of reflex and a sudden fear. 

The dog’s eyes darted up from the herd and in all directions, only now noticing that his brothers were nowhere to be seen and only now noticing the scent of iron in the air flowing through his dulled nose. In the rear a head rose, a female, feline form clumsily holding his brother’s rifle. His own rifle found his shoulder as his vision tunneled; old, slick plastic setting into the furred pocket as his sights rose, the ring disappearing as the post centered naturally, his eyes focusing, his hands twitching and making it hard to center. He hesitated, unable to make the post rest on her or near her, and unwilling to let the R1 rip. Almost simultaneously, at least to the dog’s perception, came the flash of his brother’s rifle and the sudden appearance of a leaping lion, too close to move, too close to dodge. He almost reflexively squeezed the trigger in his panic, gripping his rifle as if his life depended on it. 

Adaeze watched as blood and meat and bone exploded from her husband’s back. Three volcanoes of flesh erupting in order, the first just inside the boundary of his ribs, the next two trailing straight up towards his shoulder, the final one exiting just below his collarbone. From her perspective the two males disappeared as Tapiwa landed on top of the dog. She heard no more shots, heard no more struggle, and from that she knew her husband’s wounds were serious. She shoved her way through the herd of cattle, fiddling with the rifle in her hands. She was inexperienced, but she was quick witted, and found the smoking brass hull flying out and a fresh, only slightly tarnished round forced into battery and locked. 

Tapiwa lay on his stomach on the ground beside the dog, his eyes wide and his breathing heavy, deep and growling. He didn’t taste blood, he didn’t feel bleeding in his lung. He’d been speared before and knew that feeling, burned into his mind. But now his anger kept him from feeling much pain, at least consciously. From outside of his head he did obviously look in pain, writhing and twitching, but from the inside looking out he was naught but surprised, caught off-guard by sensation and efficacy of this, what he had honestly considered a toy, a weapon for cowards and children, for the weak, an alternative to actual strength. As his wits came to him he began to feel the pain, slowly bleeding in from the edges of his consciousness, and he realised just how wrong he had been. He got his right arm under him, his good arm. His left earnestly felt like it would fall off at the slightest movement. The pain was like being torn apart and being on fire simultaneously, centered mostly on his shoulder bone and one of his ribs. 

The dog gurgled, laying on his back staring up unto the bright blue sky. His rifle laid across his chest, and his hands had fallen limp at his sides. Blood poured from a hole ripped in the right side of his throat, bubbled from his lips and nostrils. The wind was knocked out of him by the lion’s dead weight hitting his chest, and with the gaping hole in his neck he was having little luck bringing in any more air. He pitifully watched the sky, his eyes watching the clouds as he let himself drift away towards death, giving up any chance of living. It was strange then that after that serene cowardice, that capitulation to death, he did tense, he did move towards his rifle as Adaeze’s shadow came over him. Some primal instinct to live, if only for a moment longer, stole his mind and steeled his resolve. He lifted his head with a struggle, with the half of the muscles in his neck still answering his calls. He pushed the rifle off his chest with the half of the blood still pumping in his veins, his strain pushing more violent streams from his throat like a leaking hydraulic hose suddenly put under pressure.

Adaeze didn’t use the sights. She’d barely used them before. She pointed it at him, braced under her arm like a spear, and pulled the trigger a second time. Blood splashed against the dry earth and onto Tapiwa’s face before the dog’s head fell limply down. The blood poured from him, thicker than one would imagine, like a heavy cream, too rich for the earth to soak up quickly. It rolled across the silty clay like oil over a cold pan as Tapiwa found his way to his feet, hunching forward as ragged breath and shaky feet rose a cloud of dust around him. Tapiwa heard Adaeze’s rifle clatter in the periphery, though his own heartbeat, breathing, and the ringing in his ears formed a white noise that nearly deafened him. 

Adaeze quickly moved around Tapiwa, to his uninjured side, and hooked herself under his arm, straightening him up. She knew his lung was fine, or else he’d be hacking blood, at least she thought. He was struggling to breath and blood came in pulses from his wounds, pouring down his back and chest. His pupils seemed to take up half of his eyes, only the slightest golden rim around great black saucers laid upon bloodshot sclera. Adaeze was frightened, which was rare for her. Tapiwa took damage in stride, absorbed pain well as a treasured and well-earned skill. this kind of tunnel-vision, this kind of weakness in him wasn’t normal. He hadn’t spoken yet and he was still struggling to breath, and she remembered the only time he had ever been hurt this bad before. A chill ran up her spine before she finally spoke to him sternly, hiding her fear well. “We’re going to Komona. We’ll get you sewn up and you can rest, and we can live off of these cattle and skins for the rest of the season. You know how much they love dogskins.” 

To Be Continued.


	5. Vivification

Two days had passed since their ordeal with the dogs. Two long, trying days. Adaeze was forbidden from entering the tent where her husband lay, as all were. Only the old woman’s daughters passed back and forth through the heavy, elephant-hide flaps to bring in water and the sparsest food. Singing, howling, growling and barking escaped from the tent in these times, before the furs and hides fell again, and sealed the dark chamber. Adaeze heard nothing from her husband, not once, and his silence fed her growing anxiety.

The hyenas of Komona’s tribe did their best to offer distraction, to offer aid and supplication to Adaeze, which she did accept freely. Their women nursed her children, and she theirs in turn, a reminder of the old days, solidifying bonds between families and between tribes. Gifts and praise, words of support and prayers to dead and silent gods were all piled upon her, but nothing eased her mind. She could not sleep without Tapiwa’s warmth surrounding her, even as hard as Komona tried to give her comfort. The only small distraction in this time, the only thing that could light the dark shadows of her mind was the mewling and innocent, ignorant babbling of her children. Her newborn, barely a month old, laid on her stomach suckling her right breast. He was a strong, fat little boy, and his name was called Azubuike. Another child laid on her left breast, a girl that was shorter but just as large as the boy, and maybe 10 months older. Her name was called Folami. Rolling on the floor together, towards the middle of the tent play-wrestling, was Adaeze’s eldest two children. Baako, the first born and first daughter, who was three, and Gazini, a bright-red boy who was just over 2 years old. The rhythmic suckles at her breast and the playful roaring and thudding of little bodies in the soft dirt did as much as could be done to quell her worrying mind.

The flaps to the entrance of the tent flew open and a familiar silhouette stood in the entranceway. Komona entered, the albino hyena shielding herself from the sun in a thick cloak. The permanent hyena smile across her stuck out from below her hood, visible even through the shadow. Her pink lips and pale nose slightly red, as they were the part that stuck out the most past her hood. “Want to hear something weird?” She asked as she walked inside, into the darkness, pulling her hood back. 

The children paid her no mind, but Adaeze turned her head to meet her, stroking her two suckling babes on their heads. “Witches tend to my husband, children run naked through the camp in bloody dog-skins, I think strange is the order of the day with hyenas, isn’t it?” She said with a wry laugh. 

Komona’s smile turned toothy as she laughed, stepping over the two wrestling children and sitting cross-legged across from Adaeze. “True!” As she sat, it was revealed she was nude beneath her cloak, as she tended to be. Her bare belly shone in the dim light, her unnaturally light-colored fur glimmering healthily. “But this is odd even for us. Tapiwa has a visitor. A suitor, in fact.” 

Adaeze’s ears perked. She sat up straight, crossing her own legs and cradling her babes in her lap. “Excuse me?” She asked, confused. 

“A woman. A lioness, from a Muslim village, looks like.” Komona motioned with her hands to signify putting on a burka, wrapping imaginary fabric around her head. “She says she wants to trade.” 

“Trade?” Adaeze’s eyebrow cocked and her head tilted, one ear raising and one hanging down. 

“Your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t ask questions, I decided to come see what you have to say about it.” The door to the flap opened, and in the door stood a robed figure. Her plump face was uncovered, showing her pale fur and light eyes. Their fur and skin was always pale, hidden beneath layers of robes. They were always impeccably soft and clean, as well. In a man, Adaeze saw this as a sign of laze, but in a female… Well in a female it was much the same in her mind, but those types always made good homebodies, good wet nurses and child-rearers. Coddlers at times, but under her and Tapiwa’s supervision, that could be curtailed. The cogwheels in Adaeze’s mind turned as her eyes sized up the new entrant to the room, making her gasp quietly, hesitating to announce herself in spite of her own sudden intrusion. 

“Komona…” Adaeze said quietly, standing. 

“Want me to take the kids with me?” The hyena asked, standing herself, 

“No.” Adaeze walked towards the new female as Komona rushed past her, out of the entryway. The hyena shut the flap behind her, making the new lioness jump. “You come to trade. Trade with my husband? Trade with the hyenas?” 

The lioness’ head bowed in deferment, avoiding looking at Adaeze. She had been avoiding that since she entered, in fact. “I came to trade with Tapiwa… Al Mudammir…” 

Adaeze smiled, licking her lips as she came back into her view. Her hand gripped the woman’s chin and lifted her face to make eye contact. “My husband is not available to speak. I will handle his business. What do you have to offer us, fat-faced little kitten?” 

She blushed through her fur at being teased, avoiding eye contact with Adaeze as much as possible, casting her eyes to the floor. “I offer myself… I know you have taken women before… Please take me and spare my people.” 

“Hmph!” Adaeze threw the girl’s face to the side and walked around her, her shoulders gyrating like a cat stalking. “We’ve taken women and sold them to the hyenas. Not to keep, and not in exchange for-what was it?-sparing your people?” She took the girl’s shoulders and began unfurling her robes. When the fabric wouldn’t give any more, rather than looking for the tangle or finding the correct way to remove the garment, she gripped it with her claws and ripped it from the younger woman, leaving her standing nude. The girl jumped, gasping, and moved to cover herself with her paws. She was in fact rather plump, her soft face having betrayed that well. Her breasts were quite larger than Adaeze’s, her body pear shaped, her belly plump but not portly. She had no muscle or tone whatsoever. “Who are your people, anyway?” Adaeze licked her lips as she walked back around in front of the girl, glaring at her like a feral at a pregnant cow. 

“Y-you know my people. I remember when we were younger… you never liked being with the women… You ran naked, and hunted, and always smelled like dirt and blood…” she turned up to face Adaeze, looking her in the eyes, her head lowered and her gaze upward, submissive and weak. “You still do.” 

Adaeze growled and returned to the back of the tent, where blankets were laid as a bed and her kittens played all around. “So? My father had many visitors, many friends in the surrounding tribes. Why should I remember you?” She sat with legs crossed in front of her, her hands on her knees, leaning forward. “Come. Sit.” She commanded as she waited for her answer. 

“The girl shuffled her feet as she walked to Adaeze, and fell to both of her knees, stil covering herself with both hands. “I am Abeni, daughter of Arkamun, elder sister to Tahawwur. The man that was to be your husband.” She said with an almost indignant tone, as if she was offended to not be remembered. 

“Hah!” Adaeze laughed, “Hahahaha! So, we couldn’t become sisters through your brother, so we’ll become sisters by sharing [i]my[/i] husband?” She shook her head, before leaning back onto her palms. “I don’t know if Tapiwa will enjoy you...But I know his taste. I’m more concerned about how you can be useful. Those-” She pointed to Abeni’s chest- “Could serve very well feeding our children… That way I could stop and let mine run dry again. They get in the way, the scent gives me away, they’re uncomfortable… None of those things would bother you, though.” She leaned forward again, rolling onto her hands and knees, getting up close to Abeni. “I will have to try you of course. In Tapiwa’s stead…” 

Abeni gasped lightly, turning her head away. “I had heard you both were… I had heard you use your captives together…” She swallowed hard, and let her arms down to her sides, exposing herself. Her nipples were very light and pink, her areolas large and smooth. 

“Are you a virgin?” Adaeze asked, reaching a hand up to stroke over Abeni’s head, the other hand taking the girl’s shoulder and guiding her onto her back. She wasn’t being kind, in any meaningful sense of the word, rather taking care not to bruise a delicate fruit or soft cut of meat. 

Abeni could feel herself being treated like something to be consumed. As her back hit the dirt, her thighs squeezed tightly together and her paws moved up to Adaeze’s shoulders to pause her. “Your children, d-don’t you wa-NN!” adaeze pulled Abeni’s face up to kiss her, suddenly and aggressively, gripping the nape of Abeni’s neck with her claws retracted, squeezing tightly. She purred into the kiss in spite of her fury, and shoved one of her powerful legs between Abeni’s, forcing them open. 

Adaeze pulled away from Abeni, her purr turning into a growl as a string of drool connects their lips. “Are you a virgin?” She asked again, burying her muzzle into Abeni’s neck and licking it, grinding herself against Abeni’s leg and grinding her own toned thigh against Abeni. “You should tell me if you are, Tapiwa won’t want to make you bleed or cry too much.” Adaeze’s free hand moved down between Abeni’s tightly squeezing legs, her fingers stroking over the woman’s lips.

Abeni groaned squeezing Adaeze’s shoulders as she was played with. She wasn’t refusing any more than reflex forced her to, her legs pressing together, her tongue clumsily trying to reject the kiss. If from nothing else but the pure stimulation, Abeni’s lips were starting to wet, and her soft mound was hot to the touch. She didn’t speak in response to Adaeze’s question, but shook her head no. She bit her lip to silence herself as she almost immediately felt Adaeze’s fingers delve into her, making her moan out loud. “AAAhn!” She cried out, laying her head back and stretching out her neck. Another woman had never touched her before, and she had never touched herself like this. Adaeze was rough with her, just as males had been, but Adaeze knew how to touch a woman, how to make a woman feel pleasure. That was the most shocking thing. Abeni had pleasured herself before, in absence of any options or after the unsatisfying act itself, but she had never had another.

Adaeze seemed to revel in it. Abeni’s moans, her squeals, her mewls of pleasure. The feeling of her soft thighs squeezing her hand, of her large breasts, so soft, so supple, pressing against her own firm, milk-filled orbs and her muscular stomach. In spite of having no particular attraction to women, Abeni felt herself wetter, more aroused than she had ever been before, even the pricks of Adaeze’s claws inside her and against her plush outer lips making her tingle. Suddenly a feeling she’d never experienced came over her. It was familiar, of course, but never like this. Her heels dug into the dirt beneath her, her dulled, manicured claws gripped at Adaeze’s back and arm, her back arched up until only her heels and shoulders touched the ground beneath her. A small puddle splashed beneath her. Her roar was weak, from disuse. It was quiet and mewling. Women were discouraged from it, after all. But she couldn’t hold it in, it took her by such surprise that silencing herself didn’t even occur to her until long after the moment had passed. Her body fell flat again to the earth and Adaeze laid beside her, massaging her, lengthening and softening her afterglow. 

“I will accept you as our new wife. You will guard our home, care for our children…” Adaeze pulled Abeni’s muzzle into her neck, making her breath her scent, her sweat, dirt and blood and the unmistakable scent of her that overpowered all else. The scent of a queen. “Tapiwa will enjoy your soft body as much as I do… and we will put a child in you quickly so you can nurse all of our kits… My children will be your children and your children will be mine… You will be my wife as much as you will be my sister… we will love each other as we love our husband… And no one will ever hurt you. Do you understand?” 

Abeni didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand, not now, not in the state she was in. But she thought back on home. Men had many wives, and they were judged so harshly. By their sex, by their appearance, by their children even, and the ones found wanting were beaten, or worse. They weren’t sisters, they were in competition, either by forced necessity or by true malice towards one another. This was different. Adaeze wasn’t a mother, truly. And she wasn’t a warrior. To be wanted, needed for what she was? To be judged apart from Adaeze, rather than against her? To be appreciated and loved by them both? To be needed, rather than simply wanted and cast aside when the feeling passed? 

Abeni nodded into Adaeze’s neck and wrapped her arms around her. She threw a leg over her as well, embracing her as fully as she could. She purred deeply from her chest. She knew what Adaeze and Tapiwa were. What they did. She knew that being with them would make her an enemy of the whole savannah and more. She knew the risks that entailed, to her, to her children… but now, understanding exactly what they were offering her, and weighing it against what her father, her cousins, her prospective future husbands had to offer her… she couldn’t imagine a better gamble. 

 

 

Darkness. Inky blackness. Like floating in a lukewarm pond, no flow, no movement, just surrounded by the void. When he tried to breath, it felt like trying to breath water, heavy and thick, but when he didn’t try to breath he didn’t feel faint, so eventually he stopped. For a long time it was difficult to tell if his eyes were open or shut, if he was asleep or awake. Pinpricks of white light slowly emerging. Like his eyes were adjusting to the darkness. The sky. He recognized the sky, at night. There was no moon, and no clouds. He turned his head now, trying to look. He couldn’t find his own body, he couldn’t find the earth around him. It was like he was a point of vision floating in space, no body, no anchor, no form.

The stars had an unmistakable form. He and Adaeze laid awake for hours at night finding shapes in the stars, shapes in the clouds, but not like these. These stars took definite shapes, outlines of white filled with milky light. “You are not one of ours.” A voice spoke. Neither male nor female, absent of tone or timbre. Not really a voice as much of an idea, but heard just the same. “You have never called to us.” Another voice, no, idea, but from a different source. “Nor did we form you.” Another. All different in some inconceivable way, imperceivable way. “What are you?” “Who are you?” “Why are you before us?”

He tried to speak, nothing could happen. He felt numb, but it dawned upon him that it was less a feeling of numbness than a feeling of absence. Answers formed in his mind absent of speech, unknowing or unable to transmit them. “I am a lion. I am Tapiwa.” A question was unanswered, “Why are you here?”. “I don’t know,” isn’t an answer to itself, after all. It’s barely an idea. It’s the statement of the absence of an idea. “Where Am I?”, is a clear idea though, a question, and thus came through perfectly. 

“They want him back.” “His body still lives.” “But he shouldn’t be.” “He does not believe.” “He does not know.” “He does not worship.” “What will you give to return? Who will you praise?”

There was nothing now. No coherence. Adaeze. Komona’s witches. These… things. Anger. Rage. Holding him ransom. 

“He is angry.” “He will curse us.” “He already curses us.” “He is like a beast.” “A man without a God is a beast.” “We should give him oblivion.” “He brings suffering where he goes.” “Suffering turns nonbelievers to us.” “Suffering turns them away.” “A gamble.” “Aren’t all things?” “Only void is surety.” “Existence is Chaos.” “Fury.” “He is chaos.” “Rage.” “He hates us.” “Send him back.” No voice is heard twice. So many. Dozens, maybe hundreds of voices speaking at once in short, simple ideas. 

A milky haze gains solid form, with no stars making its skeleton. A crescent, a mating of two crescents. A grin. A grin of solid white, no teeth, only knife-sharp ridges, upper and lower, meeting like a smile and clacking as it speaks. “Give my children my blessing.”

 

 

Pain in the shoulder. Stiffness in his muscles. The scent of incense, burnt meat, burnt blood. The scent of dirt and sweat and death. The smell of witches. Chanting in a language he didn’t understand by voices he didn’t know. A roar. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. He coughed, he couldn’t breathe deeply enough, like his lungs hadn’t been stretched. His arms clawed at empty air, caught flesh, then through empty air again. Shuffling around the tent and screaming. His eyes finally opened. 

The women were fleeing the room, their work done and full of genuine fear of the lion before them. The raw sunlight entering through the flaps hurt his eyes, but he didn’t turn away. He rolled onto his stomach, onto his good arm, and pushed himself onto his knees, then his feet. His body still felt numb, his legs weak. He didn’t know how long he had been lying there, he didn’t care. He burst through the flaps of the tent, flinching as the searing sunlight hit his eyes. Even his shut lids gave him no relief, the glow through the thin flesh enough to burn his tired eyes. Through furrowed brow and a tight squint he fumbled his way to what he recognized as his tent. More than once he fell, catching himself on his hands. He didn’t look like a man in those times, he looked natural, a few steps taken absent-mindedly on all fours before finding his way back to two feet, as if one were as natural as the other to him. “ADAEZE!” He roared as he lurched through the flaps of his and his wife’s tent, stopping as he could finally open his eyes fully again in the safe dim light. 

Before his eyes adjusted, the scent hit his nose, scent being his strongest sense it told him the most. The tent smelled strong of sex, it almost always did besides when it smelled of his children, since they did nothing but mate and sleep there. But it smelled of an unfamiliarity, like a female he didn’t know. The haze began to evaporate from his eyes he saw nothing but his wife, nearly being launched back out of the tent as her body hit his, launched from wherever she had sat. Adaeze’s claws aggressively gripped the sides of his mane and she kissed him vigorously, no words, only mewls and purrs of pure joy at the sight of her husband not only alive but standing, walking as strong as ever. Her mouth tasted of woman too, not Komona and none of the hyenas he knew in the camp. Adaeze broke the kiss, leaving both of them panting, holding her forehead to his and grinding it against him strongly, tugging his mane pulling him into her as they shared the intimate affectionate expression. Before he could ask, Adaeze spoke to him, “Tapiwa! My love!” She continued grinding her forehead to his, kneading his mane in her fingers as her eyes shut. “I knew you would return to me…” 

Tapiwa thought on his visions in his state of near-death. He wondered for a moment if she was taking that for granted, if he did or didn’t owe someone something for what he’s been given. But his thought was interrupted. 

“I have a gift for you, husband…” She buried her muzzle in his mane under his chin, breathing him and biting at his neck affectionately. “A lovely young thing has come to make herself your bride…” 

Tapiwa’s mind was brought back to the here and now, he looked across Adaeze’s head to the back of the tent, where he finally saw the soft, round lioness laying in the back, her loins matted and wet and her maw likewise glistening. “Why would I need another wife?” He asked, his hands on Adaeze’s hips, as much to steady himself on his feet as to hold her. 

“Many reasons, husband.” Adaeze wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight, laying her head over his shoulder. “Her hips are wider, she can bear you more and heavier, healthier children. She can nurse both mine and hers at once, with her size-” she pulled back, touching noses with him- “Which means I can let mine run dry again and return to my former fitness… I miss being your equal on the hunt, my love…” She moved her hands to his ears, stroking them softly.

Tapiwa laughed, earnestly laughed, and clawed up and down her back lovingly. “Why would I let anyone bear my children but you? Looking at my current state, it could be safe to say you’re a better hunter than I am now.” He released her from his arms and stepped aside her, moving towards Abeni. “What is her name?” He crouched as he got hear her, the girl sitting on her knees suppliantly now, nude as Adaeze had left her. 

“Let her tell you herself.” Adaeze put her hands on Tapiwa’s shoulders, kneading them as she knelt beside him and slightly behind him, guiding him towards her. “I’ve already tested her and found her quite… passable…” 

Tapiwa leant forward, on his knees and one hand, the other hand moving up to Abeni’s hair, stroking it first. “What is your name, soft one?” His fingers combed through her fur, silky and well kept. “So soft…” 

“My name is Abeni…” she said, bowing her head to his hand. “Please do me the honor of letting me join Adaeze as your wife…” she looked up at him from her slightly bowed state, avoiding eye contact reverently. 

“She wants to trade herself for the safety of her village.” Adaeze stalked behind Abeni, wrapping an arm around her and cupping her chin to make her face Tapiwa. “Let him see your lovely eyes…”

“Is this true?” Tapiwa asked, moving his hand down her body to her large chest, cupping one of her breasts in his hand as he looked her in her eyes appraisingly. 

“Yes…” Abeni said, still trying to avoid direct eye contact, not wanting to offend him. “My family could not withstand an attack from you… you have already taken one of our herds on the roads… I want to ensure my brothers and sisters, my mother and father, my family can live and eat as they always have…” she looked into his eyes directly for a moment, then shied away. “But also… I believe now… after Adaeze has spoken with me, that being your wife would be a great privilege. That you will love me, protect me from harm, keep me and my children fed and safe as long as we live…” 

Tapiwa smiled, his hand moving down to her stomach. “I will… but what do you offer me in return for all of this? I’ve heard what Adaeze said, I want to hear it from your lips why I shouldn’t give you away to the hyenas.” 

“I will serve your every need and desire, as well as Adaeze’s.” Abeni said with little hesitation. “I will nurse any and all of your children, whether they’re mine or hers. I will love and care for them all as if they were their own because they are my husband’s, and my sister’s... “ she glanced towards Adaeze, then back to tapiwa. “I am of age and I am… My body is more fit to carrying and caring for children. I will bear you as many as you see fit to give me.” She said, her hands gripping her knees tightly, full of fear and anxiety. “I have never known a male...I had never been touched before Adaeze… tested me for your sake… I will know no other male as long as I am your wife.” She said between panting breaths, her ears red and her eyes cast down, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. 

Adaeze’s hands pulled Abeni backwards. She could barely protest before she was on her back, and Tapiwa was above her, his nose to her nose. “I will never cause you harm… but I am not gentle by nature, either.” He slipped between her soft thighs, his weight on his good arm as the injured arm rested on her breast.

“I promise, we will try to be soft at first... “ Adaeze kissed Tapiwa over Abeni, then turned down to kiss her on the lips. “You’re lucky he is weak now… Maybe after the first you can be on top.” 

“How long have I been asleep?” Tapiwa asked, turning down to kiss Abeni himself as his intimidatingly large, spined member drug across Abeni’s near-virginal lips, eliciting a weak, quiet mewl from her soft black lips. 

“Two days.” Adaeze said, her hands stroking Abeni’s cheeks. “Longer than he’s gone without relief in… It’s been two years now?” 

“I-I will do my best… Husband…” Abeni mumbled, wrapping her arms weakly under Tapiwa’s arms and gripping his backfur. “Just let my body pleasure you...I will learn to enjoy whatever you enjoy….” Her legs lifted, her feet resting behind his thighs. “If you need to lay on me to rest your shoulder, please do… Your weight on top of me feels… good…” 

Tapiwa looked up at Adaeze, who looked at him, both sharing a slightly surprised, but pleased look. “You’re so vocal, Abeni…” Tapiwa said, licking her neck as he lined himself up with her wet, welcoming heat. 

“She wasn’t anything like that with me,” Adaeze teased, playing with the woman’s ears. “I’m glad you’re willing to tell us what you want, though…” she laid down beside Abeni, nuzzling into the opposite side of her neck from Tapiwa. “We won’t hesitate to tell you.” Adaeze’s hand gripped Tapiwa’s hip and pulled him forward, his length bringing a sharp, sudden gasp from the female beneath him. Abeni bit her lip and and shut her eyes, tears now truly forming as her first time was finally taken, her body finally claimed by the virile, powerful male she’s always secretly desired. “I know it hurts, sister,” Adaeze licked Abeni’s cheek, “you’ll love it in time.” 

Tapiwa hit bottom, even as his hips tried to pull back Adaeze’s claw held him in place, not letting him move. Abeni’s hips ground against him as blood trickled down from her flower. She turned to Adaeze, her eyes still shut tight. “I love it now, Adaeze… P-Please, let him go…” she said in a quiet, pleading voice. 

Adaeze smiled at her and released her husband, nuzzling up behind his ear and finally whispering to him, “Make her yours.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Sequent

Several months passed after Tapiwa awoke from his slumber and rejoined his wives.  Abeni was almost assuredly with child now, and had settled into her life with Tapiwa and Adaeze well.  She still hadn’t quite become comfortable with living natural the way that they did, but had shed the heavy robes she had brought with her in exchange for a brightly colored buba and iro gifted to her by Komona.  The simple light blouse and the dress that was naught but a bolt of fabric tied around her waist, was more than enough to satisfy her modesty as well as to satisfy her and her husband’s shared desire for him to access her body at his whim.  She sat around a circle with a few older hyena women, Azubuike resting on her thigh as they went around sewing clothes and embroidering into them. It wasn’t a business, just keeping themselves dressed. The males took care of the real business.  Handling the cattle, processing the dead dogs. 

On the coasts men would buy asian medicines made from the blood, bones, manhoods of people.  They could sell the skins even to the more civilized and ethical Europeans. Once a man’s skinned it’s hard to tell him from a feral, after all.  She surprised them all, so quickly becoming so comfortable with all of this brutality. She told Adaeze, Komona, others, her father was not a stranger to this kind of life.  Her uncles, cousins, her brother, were all similarly cruel, but spurred to go even further by their weakness. They wouldn’t stand up to a fight with Tapiwa, Adaeze, and Komona’s tribe,  that was for sure. A great many people would die though. And now, she cared more for these hyenas, more for Tapiwa, for Adaeze, for their cubs, than she had cared for her family when she first came here.  

The baby boy on her thigh grasped at her breast through her buba, nibbled and gnawed at her through the fabric.  She could only giggle and purr, in spite of being dry the experience of caring for Adaeze’s children only made her look forward to her own even more.  The prospect of having children was joyful to her now that she has been able to choose her husband for herself, and was fortunate enough to have made herself a good match.  It made her feel a little indignant though, that Adaeze’s appraisal of her like a heifer good for birthing young and giving milk turned out to be so true to her own desires.  She rubbed her stomach. She couldn’t be showing yet. She couldn’t even be sure she was with child yet. But somehow she knew. She prayed quietly for it, for a strong son that would please her husband and bring honor to him. Her attention was taken away from her fellowship with Allah by the women at her circle.  Their heads turned to the entrance of the camp, and as Azubuike continued to paw at her breast, her eyes went to saucers as her eyes laid on the familiar form. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“So this is the gun that blew your chest out your back, big man.” Komona said.  She wore a mens’ buba with a hood on it, and a pair of baggy, heavy pants like the foreigners wore, full of pockets and other such things.  She wore one belt through the loops, the waist bunched up around her waist because they were a few sizes too big, and a few other belts for decoration, one of which was a chain that jangled as she moved.  In her hands was the gun, the heavy, fat lump of steel and plastic, covered in that gaudy green and yellow stripe. “I’d tell you a little more about it but I don’t think you’d know what I was talking about. I’m surprised what good shape it was in. The other one you guys brought in that day was a rusted piece of garbage.”  She rocked a magazine into it and racked the bolt.

Tapiwa and Adaeze stood out in the field with her, arms crossed.  Adaeze was listening, was paying attention, but it was more than clear Tapiwa was here out of a sense of obligation more than actual interest.  This was something that Adaeze had wanted but had been kept away from. For Tapiwa, it was simply learning about a new animal that he had to watch out for.    “I’m going to be honest with you, you’re a big strong guy, but you don’t know guns. And uh, I’m going to be honest, I don’t think you want to put forth the effort to learn to use one.”  She shook her head and walked to an old folding table with a rug over it. “Besides your help, do you know why my little tribe of outcasts and cripples has managed to become one of the most powerful?  Because I don’t just put cheap communist rifles in the hands of children and idiots -no offense- and expect them to fight for me with no further guidance.” The albino hyena spoke quickly and dramatically, she always did.  Part of her flair as a leader. Her charisma. It did nothing for the lions, but it was a difficult switch to flip off. 

Tapiwa walked to the table with her, Adaeze following at his side.  He put a hand on it and growled when Komona smacked his hand away firmly.  “So what does that mean? Will you teach us or not?” Adaeze rested her hand on her husband’s waist and smiled. “I think she’s telling you that’s too much rifle for you.”  She teased, making him growl. 

“Exactly right.”  Komona replied, gripping the edge of the blanket and pulling it off of the table, letting it fall to the ground. “It was too much rifle for the man you took it from, too.  That’s why he’s dead.” She let out a bark of a laugh and sat the rifle down, a click of the safety lever before doing so. “It’s a hard rifle to use effectively. It takes time and training.  Time that I know you don’t want to spend on it, Tapiwa. So I’m going to start with your gift, and then get to Adaeze’s.” 

Both of the guns on the table looked mostly the same to Tapiwa.  Hunks of black metal and black plastic. One was a lot bigger than the other, sure. But the little one seemed to have more things attached to it.  Komona picked up the big one with a surprising ease and pressed a button, pulling the long, thick magazine out. It was full of bright red plastic shells that Tapiwa was unfamiliar with.  “Italian. Franchi SPAS 15.” She shoved the magazine back up into it and stuck two fingers into the carry handle and with a heavy chunk racked the bolt. “Brand new. On a boat bound for Tunisia if you can believe it.  Kept one for myself and this one is my... well consider it a wedding present for your union with the fat one. Beni? Cute thing. I’m still waiting on my turn with her, by the way.” She said, shoving the gun into Tapiwa’s arms and smacking his injured arm, making him wince and growl.  He gripped it fairly competently, it’s hard to hold a gun wrong. She rubbed the stock and poked the pocket in his shoulder where it should rest. “Put it in right here, pull it in hard.” He pulled the shotgun into his shoulder and pointed it in a general direction. He was at least smart enough not to point it towards their camp.  Komona put her claw on the front sight and tapped it. “Put your cheek down on the stock and look at this post right here huh?” He did, and she could see his eye wandering, trying to fit it right, trying to get comfortable. “Put that post right here.” She poked the trough in the rear sight. “Once you have that post in that trough, whatever you’re aiming it at is where you’re going to hit.  Shoot it a few times. Play with it and I’ll show you how to reload it.” 

While Komona was roughly giving Tapiwa the once-over, Adaeze had already picked hers up, was already playing with it.  She knew well enough not to touch the trigger, but this one had so many buttons and levers, had this odd metal tube on it between what Komona had told Tapiwa was the sights.  The first round from Tapiwa’s SPAS went off, and both of the lions jumped at how loud it was, at how powerful that reverberation was. Tapiwa smiled a bit, seeing the big puff of earth rising where his shot landed, and continued emptying out his magazine.  Komona turned to Adaeze and gently lifted the rifle from her hands, cradling it like a baby and smiling a big, toothy smile to the lioness. “Colt, 653. Standard rifle of Malaysia, the Philippines, and a little country called The United States. Three positions, here.  Safe, no bang. Fire-1 bang. Full-hold the trigger until it stops going bang or whatever you’re shooting is dead.” She handed the rifle back to Adaeze and wrapped her arms around her. The lioness already had figured out how to shoulder and how to aim, in general. Komona’s hands gloved over Adaeze’s and guided her. “This drops your magazine.  This T-handle up here is how you charge it.” The hyena leaned forward into Adaeze, pushing her upper body forward, and kicked her feet, spreading her legs a bit. “Bend your knees. Drop your hips a bit first. It doesn’t kick as much as it pushes you backwards. You just have to push back a little and you can keep it steady.” 

Adaeze laughed a bit and pushed the selector all the way forward. “I feel like you’ve said that to me before.”  She wiggled her hips back into the hyena’s playfully. When she pulled the trigger it pushed her back more than she expected. She held on for dear life, both hands gripping tightly, unable to release the trigger until the gun had ran empty.  When the gun went silent, there was a pause, and then a loud, giddy laughter. “I LIKE THIS! I like this A LOT!” All 30 rounds had gone into a patch of dirt about the size of a man, with a couple of flyers here and there but not that much to worry about.  

Komona guided Adaeze’s trigger finger to the magazine release and pressed it, letting it fall to the ground with a hollow metallic clang and the reverberation of the un-compressed spring inside.  “New magazine. Bullets forward.” She guided Adaeze to pull a fresh one out of the hyena’s thigh pocket, “Straight up into the box.” she shoved it up into the gun with her, and then guided her hand to the paddle.  “Drop the bolt.” smacked it, the bolt rang forward and the uncompressed recoil spring made an audible twang in Adaeze’s ears as her cheek remained pressed to the buffer tube. “You’re ready to go. Never have to take your eyes off the sights, never have to break the picture.”  

Adaeze balked a bit, shaking her head and straightening up,taking the rifle out of her finger.  “It’s so light… and everything works so easy…” 

“Yeah, yeah…” Komona stepped back and walked to the table, picking up another magazine for the Spas15.  “You do need to take a little bit more care of it but that shouldn’t be a problem for you.” The hyena walked to Tapiwa’s left side.  “You don't need to be fast. You’re already going to be loading faster than anyone else with a shotgun. She smacked the magazine into his left hand and gloved his hand the way she had Adaeze’s, though of course her hand was much smaller than the oversized male predator’s.   She pushed his thumb against the thick steel magazine release and swept it forward, taking the old magazine in his hand and pulling it out, moving his hand just far enough to put the new magazine in place and shoving it straight up into the magazine well. “Don't drop these. These are expensive. You need to keep them and bring ‘em back.  And don’t break them.” She moved away from him and backed off. “Now, charge it just like I did and uh… go to town on that bush.” 

Tapiwa smiled and centered his sights on a shrub about 20m away, and quickly emptied his magazine on it.  Eight shells in a Magazine, 9 .32” pellets per shell, means 72 third-of-an-inch lead balls flying 1300 feet-per-second.  There were a few shreds of the original stalk of the bush, some standing limbs still, but most of the shrubbery was gone.  Komona patted his back. “Guys use shotguns like this to clear heavy brush. Adaeze’s gun is good but it won't penetrate thick brush and shit really well so keep that in mind.” She gave Tapiwa another magazine and he stripped the old one and put the new one in himself.  “I’ve got a couple of carriers that should work for you guys. Light, don't carry too much but I don't think you guys are going to be getting in big firefights.”

“We never have before.” Tapiwa said.  It seemed he had figured out the safety on his own, he pressed it to the safe position and lowered the muzzle to the dirt.  

Adaeze added, “What we have is probably more than we’ll ever need.”  Clicking her own safety and raising her muzzle towards the sky. 

“Probably.”  Komona said, picking up the FAL she’d brought with her and picking up the blanket she’d covered the table with, bundling up the empty magazines in it.  “I’ll show you how to load these, how to clean them, and bring you the gear I got you later on. Let’s go back to the village, I’m hungry.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The older women in the village had taken the kittens to the lions’ tent.  Abeni hadn’t moved from her spot at the sewing circle, but she had turned around to face the visitor.  Metaphorically face him. Her hands rested in her lap and her face was cast down to the ground as a male lion in robes stood over her.  He wore a sword on his left hip, a dagger on his right. A clean and well-kept AKMSP, the stock folded, hung on a woven, colorful sling across his back.  They were surrounded by multiple hyenas, males and females, with rifles and shotguns of different kinds. They were… at attention, but most wore the face one has when witness to other peoples’ family business, an awkward kind of disinterest, “I’d rather not be here,” “can I shoot him,” and other kinds of similar thoughts painted on their faces.

“Your father understands your weakness in the face of fear, and he is willing to forgive you.  The deaths of cousin Ehsan and uncle Qadir shook us all. He is proud of your willingness to sacrifice for the family but ashamed of your acting without his permission.” he reached down to put a hand on her chin, trying to pull her face up, but she shook her head away and refused to look up at him.  “Giving yourself over to these savages… How will you ever marry now? Who will have you?”

“I am already married, it is too late to worry about that now, Naaji.”  She says, with a little wry chuckle that makes the male snarl a bit, clearly not used to her talking back.

“That’s not true.  It’s not been long.  We claim your marriage but a divorce.  Take a short iddah and father will have you married to someone safe… some young son with a little inheritance.”  

“So I can be some 10th-born-son’s least-favorite wife?” She finally looked up at him, a slight look of indignation on her face.  “And brother, my Iddah will be not be a short one.” She said, placing a hand on her stomach.” 

He looked to her for a moment, head tilted, before his eyes widened, and he swallowed.  “You can’t know that for sure… father was hoping you hadn’t consummated yet…” he looked a slight bit disgusted at her, his snarl now less angry and more… ashamed.

Abeni stood and he took a step back, the lioness laughing at him again.  “I could have expected that from father, but you should know better, being so young.” She brushed the dirt off of her clothes. “Tapiwa consummates with his wives in a week more than Father does in a year.  Even with a fat one like me. And I am sure I am already with his child.” 

“And we have ways of solving that problem, if you will only come ho-” He wasn’t allowed to finish, an open-handed slap went across his face, the back of her hand swiping across his jaw with a loud crack.  

“This child is not a problem to solve, and you, or father, or any of our uncles or cousins or brothers will touch them!” she said firmly to him, giving him a hard shove to the chest.  He didn’t move far, he was a large, strong male, and she… wasn’t large, or strong. But the smack to his face had clearly hurt his pride. “You can tell father I am no longer his to shame.  I am a wife of Tapiwa Ibn Al Mudammir. And I am happy here. I am cared for. I will be blessed with children like the stars, Naaji,” she put her hands on his face, cupping his cheeks. “Be happy for me.”

Naaji shook his head from her hand now and straightened his robes.  “I will… tell father you’re intent to stay. And that you’re obviously with child… I can’t promise he will believe me.”  He shook his head at her, sighing. “You could have stayed with the us…” 

“I could have, akhi.” She smiled. “I chose not to.  I expected to die or worse when I came here, and I still chose to come rather than stay at home with father and our uncles.  I was pleasantly surprised but I didn’t know it would be like this when I came. Remember me when you raise your daughters so they won’t run.” She smiled warmly to him, looking in his eyes.  

Naaji scoffed and turned, nearly running into Tapiwa.  He had been standing behind the smaller, younger lion, waiting for the need to arise for him to interfere, to protect his wife.  He had been listening. He was angry, visibly so, but chose not to act on it. He also didn’t move out of Naaji’s way, forcing the younger lion to step around him.  He didn’t say anything to Tapiwa, but nodded at him and stepped around, walking quickly. As he exited the circle that was protecting the lioness, he was intercepted by the light furred, albino hyena Komona, the woman putting an arm around him, pulling the taller lion down a bit to be at her level. 

“Hey there, sport~” Komona said, gripping his shoulder and kneading it in her hand.  Hyena females had the more testosterone of their species, her upper body strength was on par with a male, even a lion male, even if she didn’t have the size.  “You got some muscles under those robes don’t you? I wouldn’t mind having you spend the night some time.” she down at him, having pulled him slightly below her level.  He could have resisted, sure, but she had a FAL in her right hand, and she was the matriarch of this whole… tribe? Warband? Naaji wasn’t sure what you would call it, but he knew he didn’t want to offend them in the middle of their own village.  “You know, your sister loves it here. Tapiwa and Adaeze love it here. The kids love it here. Maybe you’d like it here. Lions are great for hyenas to have around, you know. People respect you guys more, no matter how many hyenas are around, how many people we kill, how much business we run, people always disrespect the yeen, you know?” she let go of his shoulder and moved her hand down, getting a swing and giving a sharp smack on his ass.  “You’d get fed for free, just have to do the mildest work, scare some people~” she kept her hand on his butt and dug her claws in a bit. “Let me take you to do business. Tapiwa hates doing that boring work. Go into town, scare some Chinamen into paying more than my stuff is worth, and maybe we have some fun on the way home.” She let his ass go as they reached the outskirts of their camp, giving him a bit of a shove, making him stumble a bit.  “If you ever come back, come straight to my tent. If you don't, I’ll be very very angry.” She smiled a big, broad, toothy smile behind her pale pink lips. “I may have to spank you.” 

Naaji nodded to her, backing towards his dusty truck. “Um, y-yes, I will consider that.  It’s an enticing offer.” He climbed in, keeping his eyes on her out of a kind of fear and need for awareness, not knowing if she was going to open fire on him or something else.  

“Yeah, fucking enticing.” She squeezed her own crotch, bulging out her pseudo-peen down her pants-leg.  Naaji managed to find the key hole and turned the truck over, raising a rooster-tail of dust as he drove away as quick as possible, leaving the albino hyena standing in the cloud cackling like wild.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

As Naaji walked away Tapiwa stepped closer to Abeni, stepping up close to her.  As soon as Naaji turned his back the pale-furred, plump lioness started shaking, her courage finally failing her, her bravado failing her.  “I-I can’t believe I just slapped him… I can’t... “ She laughed a bit, a nervous, fearful kind of laugh. “I, haha father didn’t ever let any of the women discipline his sons. Not even their mothers or elder sisters.”  

Adaeze stepped behind her, putting her hands on her shoulders and holding her. “I’m proud of you. You must have been so afraid.”  She looked up to Tapiwa over Abeni’s head, smiling to him. “She looked so strong for a moment, didn’t she?” She kneaded Abeni’s shoulders like light sweet dough.

“She looked angry.” Tapiwa said, reaching out and putting a hand on her soft cheek.  He petted her face gently and between Adaeze’s comforting hold and his caressing of her face, she began to calm down, her shaking stopping and giving her the opportunity to take a couple of deep breaths, “I am very proud of you, Abeni.” He leaned down and kissed her on the lips, a soft, short peck of a kiss, and when he pulled away her anxious fearful smile relaxed, to a much more genuine one, softer.  

Abeni put her hands on Tapiwa’s sides and softly tugged him in, wrapping her arms tighter around him and burying her face in his bare chest.  Adaeze wrapped arms around both Abeni and Tapiwa, pulling them all in together, and Tapiwa draped his arms over Adaeze’s shoulders, pulling her into him to kiss her over Abeni.  The plump grey lioness squished between her two mates, the top of her head covered by his wild mane, her face obscured by his pectorals as her nose nestled in the valley between them.  She could hear them kissing above her, and a little hidden blush formed on her cheeks, paired with a jealous wiggle of her hips. Tapiwa’s hands moved down from their nested spot on Adaeze’s back, one down the muscular lioness’s side, one down the little plump one’s, each hand resting on one of their hips, pulling them both into them. 

“We doing this in the middle of the camp again?  I didn't know it was harvest time!” The stark white hyena said loudly, invading their hug from the side, taking all three lions in her hold as best as she could.  Tapiwa growled and broke the kiss with Adaeze, broke the hug with two lionesses and shot a chuff and jab of the chin at Komona before walking away towards his tent, his hands gripping both of his wives’ hips and taking them with him.  “Oh, oh, we’re NOT doing that in the middle of camp again, okay.” she said, waving to them. “I still want a turn with Beni! You owe me!” She said, starting to cackle again and walking away to continue about her business. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“I can’t believe how angry you looked,” Adaeze held Abeni’s shoulders as they walked together back towards their family tent.  Abeni laughed a bit sand shrugged her shoulders, putting her chin down and hiding a little bit of a blush. 

“It wasn’t that impressive, Adaeze…” she said shyly, turning to hide her face away from Adaeze and Tapiwa.  

“It was attractive, Abeni.” Adaeze walked her fingers down Abeni’s arms and gripped her soft, squishy biceps a bit as they walked into the tent together, leaning in to lay her chin on the lioness’ shoulder. “You looked so sexy while you were angry.”  She released her, walking down to their bed pile and flopping down on the furs, blankets and pillows that made it up. 

Abeni froze for a moment, her cheeks and the velvetty inside of her ears were bright red.  Tapiwa put his hands softly on her shoulders and stroked them up and down her arms. As his rough pads moved across her soft, sun-warmed fur, her body relaxed and almost melted back into his chest, sighing out a deep sigh.  “You looked... “ Tapiwa started, before turning down to kiss the top of Abeni’s head, nuzzling in and wrapping his arms around her chest, underneath her bust, choosing to embrace her rather than continue speaking. Adaeze smiled broadly watching this, reclining back on the bed and getting comfortable, shedding the web gear Komona had given her and throwing it aside. She giggled a bit as she saw Abeni’s lips quiver, leaning up on one elbow as she faced them, watched them. 

Abeni moved her hands over Tapiwa’s, her smaller, soft hands gloving over his rough paws, tightening his grip around her body.  It plumped her chest up, stretching at the fabric of her buba and plumping her cleavage up at the front. The soft, light furred lioness purred feeling her husband’s embrace, and nuzzled her head back into his kisses.  “Tapiwa… husband…?” She said, quietly. 

Tapiwa nuzzled towards her ears and kissed her right behind the ear, pressing his lips to her soft, plush fur.  “Yes?” he said in a deep, husky whisper.

“I want you to take me.” she said, her voice quivering.  “Like you take Adaeze… I want all of your passion, all of your power… I want to feel it all.  No holding back.” she said, in a very quiet, fearful voice. Not fearful of her husband. Not of his power or of his passion.  But fearful of asking for it, fearful of asserting herself. Fearful of admitting her carnal desires, even for her husband. 

Tapiwa didn’t answer her.  He didn’t move for a while, continuing to embrace her, breathing through her fur and enjoying her warm scent.  She started shivering, anticipating rejection. Her husband’s grasp on her body loosened and his hands moved up to her chest.  His claws grasped at her shirt and tore it to sunders in a quick, rough motion, making her yell out in surprise. Her large breasts bounced free as they were no longer constrained in the fabric of her buba. The air in the tent was warm and humid, but even so, once her sensitive bare flesh was exposed to the open air they began to harden.  They had little time to on their own though, as quickly tapiwa’s hands moved to grasp at the soft, fleshy orbs, even his massive hands barely able to palm her whole breasts. She gasped feeling herself grabbed, taken control of like that, and she moaned. Her hands moved over his yet again, holding him. Her toes clawed at the earth beneath her feet as she settled into this pleasure, into his hands kneading and groping at the soft flesh of her bosom. 

And then she yeowled.  She yeowled at his claws grasping that flesh, gripping her tightly.  She yeowled at the teeth that grasped the back of her neck firmly. Her voice cried out wordlessly as his rough pads pinched and pulled at her npples, twisting them, treating her body more roughly than he ever had before.  Even though she wasn’t used to the pain, even though she wasn’t accustomed to this kind of treatment, she didn’t shy away from it. She didn’t hate it. She had seen and heard her sisters, her aunts and her own mother treated this way and she never envied them, she never desired it for herself, but somehow this was different.  It felt different. Was it the fact she had asked for it? Was it the fact that this treatment was symbolic of her husband’s hunger and his passion and not her husband’s wrath or abuse? She didn’t know why. She didn’t care to understand now. Her legs felt weak, her womanhood felt hot and she could feel the wetness growing, spreading down the insides of her thighs.  

Adaeze, for her part, laid on their shared bed looking up at them, a hand clutching one of her breasts and another hand between her legs, her fingers dancing over her mons pubis and her labia majora, teasing herself as she watched. “She’s enjoying it, Tapiwa.  Don’t stop…” She slipped two fingers into herself, spreading her wet lips and making soft, quiet stirring and squelching sounds at the end of the tent. 

Tapiwa’s hands moved down from Abeni’s breasts to her hips, gripping the hem of her dress and Ripping it apart. Once the folded over and sewn up hem was torn, the rest of it split open like tissue paper, the darker, coarser fur of hier groin exposed and the moisture dripping down her thighs and glistening in that longer, coarser pubic fur. His fingers ran through her crotchfur, his claws dragging across her sensitive flesh, squeezing her soft plush mound, his middle finger slipping into the cleft of her lips and curling up into her tunnel, feeling her welcoming wet heat. She gasped at his rough treatment, her voice catching raspily as he pleasured her with rough hands, as his maw moved from her neck to her shoulder, leaving deep red marks where he nipped, where he bit in earnest.  “Tapiwa!” she cried out loudly, her hands gripping his wrists, digging her own dulled claws into him instinctually. He released her with his jaws and shoved her forward, pushing her onto the pile of pillows and skins and sheets, falling down onto Adaeze.

Adaeze laughed and caught Abeni, hugging the woman into her chest. “Oooh are you having trouble handling it already sister? He’s been kind so far~” she cooed, her tail whipping behind her as she ran her fingers through Abeni’s fur, petting her as Tapiwa’s hands much more roughly landed on the plump lioness’ hips.   

“Wh-Tapiwa, please, let me-EEE!” she almost squealed as his jaws wrapped around her soft, squishy asscheek, biting down firmly as each hand gripped her thighs, his fingers digging in to the pliable flesh, his claws dragging across her skin leaving raised red marks as he bit over and over again across her cheeks, across her thighs, growling deeply.  Abeni moaned and whimpered in a mix of pain and pleasure, knowing tapiwa was leaving his tooth and clawmarks all over her jiggling ass and thighs, her tail whipping behind her, occasionally striking Tapiwa’s face as he went at her behind, biting and nipping, sucking and leaving hickeys along with the bite marks and clawmarks. 

Abeni’s body was so much softer, so much plusher than Adaeze’s.  There was so much for Tapiwa to wrap his jaws around he was almost overwhelmed. The nape of her neck was loose and fatty almost like a child’s and she reacted so strongly when he clenched his teeth around it.  Her shoulders, her arms, her sides, everywhere had some nice, soft meat to dig his claws in to, to dig his teeth into. Right now he couldn’t pry his attention away from her rump, from the cleft where her cheeks met her thighs.  It was so soft and her flavor was so good, savory, salty, but sweet as well, with the slightest bitter aftertaste of sweat. He couldn’t resist kneading her thighs with his clawed hands, rolling them, squeezing them, clawing them like a soft sweet dough.  Her tail smacked his face and he was distracted from her rump finally. He wrapped his jaw around the base of her tail and bit down, making her mewl and growl against Adaeze’s chest, her head and back still being petted by the more muscular lioness. 

“You’re horrible… She can’t even struggle~” Adaeze cooed to Tapiwa, making eye contact with him as she petted Abeni’s ears and he locked his jaws around her tail.  

The plump lioness’ legs did kick.  Her claws did dig into the dirt underneath her.  Her arms held Adaeze tight and her claws raked through the muscular lioness’ fur.  Abeni’s muzzle was buried between Adaeze’s breasts, huffing her scent as she breathed desperately from Tapiwa’s rough treatment.  Tapiwa’s hands gripped the tops of her thighs and his thumbs moved between her cheeks and spread her, exposing her tailhole and the softl spreading her pussy to reveal the hot pink flesh barely peeking out from between her thick, soft lips and her darker-furred bush.  The lioness mewled, anticipating a penetration, anticipating finally getting to feel his fingers or something inside her needy heat. What she received was the feeling of his mouth wrapped around as much of her wet mound as possible, his nose buried under her tail and his rough feline tongue dragging across her folds.  Abeni’s tail shot down, her eyes widened. “Aah! T-Tapiwa no! That’s makrooh!” She looked up to Adaeze, earnestly trying to crawl away from Tapiwa’s licking, biting, nibbling maw at her lowers. “That’s dirty! A-Adaeze tell him! A husband isn’t to put his mouth there-AAhn!” she moaned out, falling forward back onto Adaeze’s chest.  

Adaeze placed her hands on Abeni’s cheeks and moved her to face her, pinching her cheeks in her fingers as she cradled her soft face.  “Our husband is to put whatever he wants, wherever he wants~” She cooed, leaning in to kiss the woman. “You didn’t mind when I did it…”

“Th-that was different!  I was being f-...” she hesitated, only now considering how she had justified that in her mind. How she had justified making love to another woman.  

Adaeze smiled to her and stroked through her headfur, nuzzling her.  “You left that behind when you came to us, sister~” she said lovingly, pulling Abeni fully up to rest on her chest, her head over her shoulder so that she could look across Abeni’s back down to Tapiwa.  

The lion’s eyes were barely visible over the lioness’ plump cheeks.  Adaeze could see them closed, focusing on the flavor of his wife and the feel of her fur under his tongue.  His hands gripped at her asscheeks and his claws dug deep into them, little pinpricks of blood dripping from matching 5-pointed marks.  The sounds of him slurping, swallowing, the wet smacks of his tongue and of his lips against her lips were audible even over the sound of the lioness’ moans and groans, her purring and growling, her yeowls in pain from a stray nip, a stray bite of his sharp teeth.  Her claws dug into Adaeze’s shoulders and her head fell back as she came, a wet splashing heard from between her legs as her pussy spasmed and her juices poured down Tapiwa’s chin and onto the ground underneath him, the hungry lion not stopping for a second, not shying away from her taste. Her toes clawed at the open air and she gritted her teeth as Tapiwa continued, eating her for his pleasure and his enjoyment, not hers.  Hers was simply a side-effect, a byproduct of being used. Abeni’s whole body tightened as he licked up, dragging his tongue across her lips and then up across her tailhole, making her yell out with a high pitched, almost broken squeal. “Aah! Th-there too?!?!” She asked in surprise and confusion, looking at Adaeze. 

“Don’t be afraid, Abeni.  Just enjoy him before he starts biting again…” she said, stroking Abeni’s ears and pulling her face back into her bosom to muffle her moans and cries.  

Tapiwa held Abeni’s luscious cheeks apart, keeping her pucker exposed for his rough, hungry tongue.  Over and over again he lapped over her, sometimes intently dragging the full length of his tongue across her clean, pink asshole, and sometimes starting down at the top of her pussy, dragging his tongue across her folds, through the delicious, soaking wet bush of pubic fur before finally slurping across her ass again.  Her tail flagged, raised straight up in the air with tension of her body, her still unaccustomed to this kind of attention, to this kind of affection from her husband. Her back arched up, her knees were off the ground as she dug her claws into the earth beneath her, pushing herself forward to no avail, only pushing her hips up higher.  Tapiwa’s thumbs moved away from her pussy, and into the bends of her legs, squishing her mons together. Abeni felt the hot, wet breath on her before his lips wrapped around her entire, furry mound and sucked on it firmly. She wriggled her hips and moved back and forth, her claws continuing to knead Adaeze’s shoulders and biceps as she meweled out loudly.  When she felt his teeth on her she whimpered and bit her lips as he felt his own sharp teeth digging into her sensitive, delicate feminine flesh. 

“Oh, poor sweet thing, he’s doing that thing, isn’t he?”  Adaeze cooed, smiling as she looked down at them both. “I usually kick him when he tries to do that to me…” she laughed a bit, rubbing her thighs together trying to somehow sate her own arousal, as her toes kneaded the empty air.  She had the self control to deny her desires currently, they took turns all the time and right now it was Abeni’s turn. But she was desperately hungry, needy for someone inside of her. 

Tapiwa released Abeni from his jaws and she sighed deeply in relief, only lightly moaning and wiggling now as he bit, nipped, licked and scratched his way up her back, his hands reaching around and clawing her soft belly, her tits, moving up her body towards Adaeze, towards mounting her.  Adaeze reached out a hand and as soon as he was within reach she took his mane, pulling him all the way up, all the way to mount Abeni, up to her face so that she could kiss him firmly, passionately, so that she could show her husband her love for him as he gave his love to their wife. Abeni’s taste on Tapiwa’s lips, her juices pouring down his jaw, down his mane, dripping from his fur made Adaeze’s mouth water.  Both of the females were surprised when Tapiwa broke the kiss and roared suddenly. 

“Aww, come on big guy.”  Komona said, having entered at some point during the lions’ love making.  She smacked Tapiwa on the ass which elicited a snap of the teeth from him, and a laugh from Adaeze. Abeni was still a little too distracted, whether or not she’d noticed Komona was there was an honest guess.  “I wanted a go at the big girl.” she said, throwing her buba off and into a corner, starting to unbuckle her several belts. “Looks like you need a little love though, huh, Adaeze?” The hyena was stark white along her entire body.  Her lips, her nose, her pads, her nipples, her hanging pseudopeen were all pale pink. An albino. Her breasts weren’t particularly large but they were there, and her working-man’s muscle-tone showed through her thin, light white fur well.  Adaeze had had her many times, Tapiwa had had her many times. They were familiar. 

“MMm a little snack to tide me over wouldn’t hurt…” Adaeze replied, spreading her legs apart and displaying her glistening black lips to the hyena. She smiled and kissed Abeni on the top of the head, looking up to Tapiwa.  “I think she’s ready, Tapiwa.”

Tapiwa growled as he watched Komona undress, his hands moving up to grip Abeni’s shoulders and pin her down against Adaeze’s chest, pushing himself up and getting in position behind her.  The top of his shaft rubbed against her coarse, dripping wet pubic fur, the heat radiating off of her and into his manhood, the heat radiating from his manhood against her lips. Abeni lifted her head for the first time in a long time and looked back across her shoulder to her husband. She moved her hips side to side, rubbing her hot, wet womanhood against him, tickling his spined feline shaft with her pubic fur.  “Take me as you wish, Tapiwa.” She said with dreamy, half-lidded eyes, biting her lip to him. Tapiwa dug his claws into her shoulders and pulled his hips back, sliding the full length of his cock across her cunt and letting the tip slide up her lips to her entrance. When he felt his tip hit that exact right spot, he pulled her back in his arms, and thrust forward with his hips, thrusting into her with a loud, thunderous slam.  Abeni screamed out in a loud, breathy, broken yeowl as she was taken so roughly, her whole body rippling from her cheeks all the way up her back, her belly, down her legs. 

“Oh man, I know how that feels.” Komona joked.  The hyena laid herself down next to Adaeze, wrapping an arm around her and stroking her pussy with her fingers, nuzzling into the lioness’ neck.  “I didn’t walk for a day after that.” She nipped at Adaeze’s neck and pushed two fingers into her, making the muscular lioness moan. One of Adaeze’s hands moved down and gripped Komona’s pseudo-peen, stroking the penis-like appendage gently as she let the hyena finger her.  “I still want a turn at her though. Maybe you could let me break in her ass. I’m not as big as you it’ll go easier. “

Tapiwa growled, and Adaeze turned to her and kissed her on the lips.  “You can discuss this later. For now, let him do as he wishes and you have more important things to attend to.” She locked muzzles with the hyena, kissing her deeply, pushing her tongue into Komona’s mouth and making out with her sloppily as they played with each other.  Komona didn’t seem to mind, thrusting her hips against Adaeze’s hand and closing her eyes to enjoy that kiss. 

Tapiwa’s hips repeatedly, over and over and over again slammed into Abeni’s behind, rocking her body on the floor of their tent and making her whole body flow and bounce.  Her rear hurt from the power of his thrusts hitting her rump, she felt almost like she was getting paddled. “Aah! AAH! AYEEEE!!!” She yelled over and over again like the breath was getting pushed out of her, that last long drawn out squeal an orgasm, one that was drawn out and intensified by his continuing thrusts.  Tapiwa felt her juices dripping down his shaft, down his balls, and Adaeze and Komona could see him smiling proudly. He raked one hand full of claws down her back slowly, then gripped her tail, tugging upwards on it firmly and rubbing his thumb across her hole, stroking and massaging her drooly-wet pucker with his pawpad.  

“Man I’ll never understand how you guys can handle poundings like that without crying.  Those spiny dicks hurt enough when he’s being gentle…” Komona said, moving her hips to angle herself into Adaeze.  She pushed her hips forward and her nicely sized pseudo penis filled the tight, muscular lioness’ slick tunnel. Her specially adapted clit filled the lioness well, and gave her amazing sensations especially with how tight Adaeze was and how reactive her muscles inside were.  

“Nnnnn…”  Adaeze purred, lifting her leg and moving a hand down to rub her clit while that smooth peen filled her.  “It doesn’t hurt to us… or… it doesn’t feel like pain… It feels like a tickle, if a tickle made you cum…” She wrapped her leg behind Komona’s, supporting herself and giving the hyena something to brace and push against as she laid on her side thrusting into her.  

“Mmm I can imagine.  Still if I’m going to be taking it daily from a lion I think I’ll go somebody smaller than the big guy…  I bet Naaji would be more manageable…” she nibbled on Adaeze’s neck, a hand moving to grope her tits, her other arm bracing herself in her current position on her side.  

Abeni pressed her forehead to Adaeze’s chest, huffing, moaning, occasionally yelling in response to the tugs at her tail, the thrusts against her rear.  Those spines raked against her insides, his thick manhood stretching her more brutally now as he fucked her rougher than he ever had before. It was true, her inner walls were more… robust than non-felines.  The sensations a little more dull. The pricking, the dragging of his spines through her insides were an impossibly arousing, almost necessary sensation to arouse and to bring her to climax. There was a raspy loud gasp as Tapiwa forced his thumb into Abeni’s virgin pucker, she bit her lip firmly and hissed an inhale as she tried to fight the urge to scream in pain.  Abeni was hurting. She was in pain. This was incredibly intense. But she loved every second of this, she begged for it. She was doing her entire wifely duty, she was taking the full brunt and full force of her husband’s lust and fury and she was proud, she was happy, she felt desired, needed, wanted. She felt fulfilled, entirely. Her lust, her desire was a desire to be needed.  A desire to be wanted. And if nothing else, Tapiwa’s brutal affection demonstrated an insatiable carnal desire for her. He laid down over her, his huge, muscular frame dwarfing her body even as husky as she was. She felt the nape of her neck wrapped in his jaws and clenched down on, her husband pulling back on her neck like a feral beast, tugging her into his thrusts. His thumb circled and pulled on her hole as he grasped her cheek.  She could feel his cock flexing and throbbing inside of her, and anticipation welled up inside of her. One of her hands moved down between her own legs, her soft, delicate hand cupping his balls and giving them a gentle squeeze. “Aaah… NNNnnnnn… Tapiwa.. Husband… Please give me everything you have…” she said in light, breathy gasps, shoving her hips back into his thrusts, grinding against his lap. Tapiwa roared into the nape of her neck as he came, as he poured his love and affection and every drop of his powerful seed into her.  Abeni sighed happily, continuing to massage her husband’s churning balls as he finishes his orgasm. 

“MMmmm heavenly isn’t it, sister?” Adaeze cooed, her free hand combing through Tapiwa’s mane, petting him, rewarding him for doing such a good job, showing him affection as Komona rocked her body.  

Abeni nuzzled up to Adaeze, licking her chin and smiling.  “I love you, sister.” She said, before kissing her on the lips passionately.  Adaeze purred and twitched and moaned into the kiss as she orgasmed, her fingers working her clit and Komona’s peen doing a good job of stimulating her.  The hyena herself kept thrusting for a few moments more before cumming herself, biting her lip and letting her eyes go half-lidded as she enjoyed a nice, more-than-decent first orgasm of the day.  

“God...DAMN do I love having lions around…”  She said to herself happily. 

One of Tapiwa’s hands gripped the back of Komona’s head, pulling her attention to him.  He made her make eye contact with him and growled. “I like your idea. You get to go first.”  He said, letting her go and sitting up. Abeni looked at Adaeze confused, then to Komona, and back to Tapiwa.  Adaeze smiled a knowing smile, and Komona smiled a very happy, anticipatory smile, licking her teeth hungrily as she eyed the lioness’ fat ass across her back.

“Oh no…”  Abeni said under her breath, a smile curling at her lips.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Almost two weeks had passed since Naaji’s visit, Abeni had never felt more free and liberated.  She stood in the center of the camp over the fire where the other women were cooking. She still held a fat little baby girl on her hip, talking with the hyenas as it took her both hands to carry the heavy infant.  Tapiwa’s passion had left visible bite marks and claw marks all over her body, particularly her neck,her shoulders, her arms, her hips. She felt bold enough to walk about the camp without her top, which exposed the overlapping bite marks on her breasts and stomach, the dug-in claw marks on her hips.  Her knee length skirt showed the bite marks on her calves as well. She was proud of them, proud of enduring Tapiwa and Adaeze’s passion, and she enjoyed every second of the pain and the pleasure she went through with them. She incited most of it, even. The hyenas in the camp understood them, wearing her bruises and her wounds with pride.  Her uncle Ra’d, did not understand, however. No, in the family a woman’s nakedness was shame. In their family bruises and wounds were the remnants of punishments and chidings, not anything to display, not anything to bare out in the open. 

Ra’d’s shame was visible on his face the moment he saw her, his anger visible.  Unlike Naaji, however, Ra’d’s anger was actionable. His roar brought the camp to a standstill for a short moment, before a handful of hyenas circled behind him. He didn't carry a rifle.  If he carried a firearm at all it was hidden somewhere in his robes. What he did have on his person was a large, heavily curved sword on his left side and a similarly curved dagger on his right side. His thin black lips drawn back exposing his wet ivory-colored teeth.  

Behind Ra’d and on his left stood the boy that was known as Shahid.  Only one ear poked out from beneath his mane and a bald spot rested on his forehead where a thick messy rip once was.  No hint of a tail peaked from his robes. He was carrying a firearm, though not a particularly nice one. It was an Auto-5 that someone had cut down to tube-length.  He carried it in his hands, cradled in crossed arms. His face wore a hard expression for a young man, but the way he shrunk from Ra’d’s roar betrayed the facade of an anxious boy, and the way he hugged his shotgun belied the nature of an impotent man hiding behind a weapon.

“Not two months among the kafir and you already debase yourself!” Ra’d screamed from across the fire, coming to a stop and glaring at her.  “You WILL come home with us, today! Now! Your father will not allow you to shame his name any further!” As Ra’d spoke, his complete attention on Abeni, Shahid began to notice the circling of hyenas around them, his head swivelling, but his face remaining firm, standing in solidarity with his uncle.  

Even without Adaeze or Tapiwa right by her side, she was unafraid of him. She was unshaken.  She would not be intimidated by her father, his brothers, or their sons anymore. She did not laugh in his face the way she did Naaji, though.  Ra’d wasn’t one to be pushed. “I am not going back uncle. Ever. This is my home now, the house of my husband. I am the second wife of Tapiwa Ibn Al Mudammir and you will respect him in his house.”  

“Your husband is a wild dog and he will die bleeding in a ditch!  We will drag his thieving murdering body behind our trucks until nothing is left but bloody skin hanging from the rope!” He yelled, the snarl never leaving his face.  “We will bury you up to your breast stone his kafir children in front of you before you follow them. Your dishonor of your family will not be forgotten and it will not go unanswered!” 

“No one will question your expertise in killing infants and women who can’t defend themselves uncle.” She said wryly, looking at him.  “A great warrior, the hunter of old women and babbling babes.” She scoffed and spit into the fire at him. “Shahid, cousin. Surely your experience with Adaeze taught you the family is not as powerful as our father’s think they are.  They are not the proud warriors they pretend to be. Do you want to stand up against this? Do you want to die? Do you want your brothers and cousins to die? Do you want your sisters to be bought and sold by these hyenas alongside your cows?”  She turned her body, one hand leaving the fat babe in her arms to wave around the camp, the two, three row-deep circle of hyenas that now stood, surrounding the fire but especially surrounding the two strange lions. Every one of them waiting on one of them to do something stupid, one of them to give them an excuse, a good reason to destroy them both.  

Ra’d seethed at her open derision, at her mockery of him, of his family, of his sons.  He put a hand on Shahid’s shoulder and squeezed it, digging his claws in. Shahid whinced a bit, but quickly strengthened back up, his hand grasping the grip of his shotgun strong enough to make the wood creak around the metal.  Ra’d didn’t look so Ra’d did not see, but Abeni could see from across the fire, Shahid’s eyes were like a child about to get whipped, full of fear and anxious anticipation. Ra’d opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Tapiwa and Adaeze walked together into the circle, flanking either side of Abeni.  “The bandit king makes his entrance now. You and your mannish wife come to scare me away like you scared Naaji? You don’t even scare my son!” 

“Bandit king?” A voice behind him laughed, and he half-turned, putting his back to his son, one shoulder towards the lions, and the other to the voice.  It was Komona, the albino hyena who he had not yet met, still carrying the FAL that nearly killed Tapiwa, and a salvaged Rhodesian kit under a hooded shawl.  “You’ve got that a bit wrong. That big son of a bitch isn’t a king of shit. He’s just a wild lion that stands on two legs and talks sometimes.” She walked within about 20 feet of him and stopped, stepping to get more comfortably in his view, making big sweeping motions with that rifle pointed down towards the ground, but ready to  bring up at a moment’s notice. “Queen bitch in this camp is me. And Abeni, you got it wrong too. This is my home. This is my family. I own this.” She said, gesturing to the whole camp with the rifle, turning a full 360, not hesitating to turn her back to him for a second. “You come into my house, unannounced, uninvited, you threaten to drag my friend behind a truck, to stone my friend’s wife, to stone his children to death?  And you expect to leave completely un-scathed?”

Ra’d scoffed at her and spit on the sandy loam earth.  “We can fight our way from you. Lions do not fear hyenas.”  

“You’re right, you don’t. And you know, that needs to change.”  She nudged and winked at someone behind him and a shot rang out like thunder.  Both of Shahid’s legs came out from under him as a single 5.45x39 bullet tore through the bottom half of one thigh and then just above the knee of the other leg.  He roared in pain, his grip on his shotgun was lost and it flew away. Another hyena ran in and grabbed it before running back into the line, the periphery of the circle.  Ra’d didn’t even turn to look at his son, keeping his eyes on the hyena. “You’re going to kill us now? A dozen men with rifles like cowards.”

From across the fire came another thunderous roar, one that nearly defeated the roar of the rifle.  The fire seemed to shrink for a moment from the reverberation, from the noise, from the pressure. “NO!”  Tapiwa yelled over the fire. “You will return! You will tell Alman that tonight I come for him! I come for his house!  Return and tell him to prepare!” 

Ra’d’s eyes burned as he looked across the fire to Tapiwa, burning with hate.  The rifles in the circle lowered and they made an opening for him, a rather tight, direct opening, leading out of the camp and in the direction of their truck.  He choked down his snarl and bent down, moving to pick up his son, but Komona interrupted him before he could even reach him. “Nuh uh! The boy stays! We’ll need a party favor to get our spirits up for tonight!” she said in a venomous tone, licking her lips a bit.  “I just love lions. You’d better run, old man. Time’s not on your side.” Shahid gulped, choking from the pain, looking up to his father with tears in his eyes. From pain or from fear, Ra’d couldn’t tell where those tears came from, but he also didn’t care. Ever since Shahid had been… disfigured, and crippled by Adaeze he had been a symbol of his failure as a father, as a man, to raise such a weak son. He coldly turned away and began walking out of the camp.  Komona pulled a bayonet out of her belt and held it up. “Anyone who cuts the old man gets a turn on the boy!” Ra’d didn’t have a moment of hesitation hearing that. He didn’t question it. He ran, fast and hard, claws digging into the earth and kicking up clouds of dust behind him. One after another arms reached out of the two living walls to his sides, most of them making contact with at least his robes. By the time he reached his truck he knew he had a dozen or more gashes on his arms, leg, and torso. None of them enough to wound him.  And what was to come after would not wound Ra’d greatly either.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

To Be Continued   
  



End file.
